Mangaluru: City based not-for-profit organisation Anti-Pollution Drive (APD) Foundation has been granted with the prestigious ‘India Youth Fund Award’ by UN-Habitat & Narotam Sekhsaria Foundation. The award was given for APD’s Smart Swaccha Mangaluru (SSM) project for SWM during the Young Social Innovators Conclave 2016 held in Mumbai on 15th November.

APD Foundation’s founder Abdullah A. Rehman received the award certificate from Padmini Somani, Director, Narotam Sekhsaria Foundation. The award will also include funding of the awarded project of up to Rs. 8 Lakhs.

Mangaluru’s APD Foundation was one among seven recipients to be selected for the award out of the 550 applicants from across the country. The other recipients are: (1) Awaaj Jan Kalyan Samhiti, Bhopal, (2) MicroX Foundation, Delhi, (3) Green Cross India, Trivandrum, (4) Born2Win Social Welfare Trust, Chennai, (5) Shaishav Gujarat and (6) Friends Union for Energizing Lives, Pune in different categories.

SSM is a programme to achieve segregation at source through targeted campaigns, workshops and training programmes. It will be executed side by side with APD’s current IEC campaign which is conducted along with Antony Waste Handling Cell Pvt. Ltd.

“In the coming months through workshops and toolkits, we aim to actively help schools, colleges, government buildings; offices, malls etc., to adopt sustainable waste management techniques,” says Sobia, APD’s strategic planner.

“This conversion strategy is adopted in cities like Taiwan, Japan, Singapore & London. To introduce this program to Mangaluru will be a great challenge. So we hope this award for Mangaluru city will encourage the citizens to actively participate in waste segregation and work jointly to achieve the cleanest city tag for Mangaluru city,” says Rehman.