<i>Oman Air follows students' lead in clean-up campaign</i>
Oman Air officials clean up the streets surrounding its office in Agrabad commercial area in Chittagong city yesterday. Photo: STAR
Edwina Panioty, office coordinator of Oman Air, gleamed with pleasure yesterday as she along with her colleagues finished cleaning up different streets encompassing their office compound in the port city. "Every day we use the streets but never pay any heed to keep them clean and free from pollution”, she said. “If we start a cleaning campaign from our respective houses, someone must learn from us”. Panioty said they took the initiative to make aware people about their duty as citizens to keep clean their environs among themselves as well as removing wastes from the streets. The staff of Oman Air yesterday launched the two-hour campaign with the slogan "Keep your neighbourhood clean". Oman Air, which set up its office in Chittagong in 2007, undertook the campaign for the first time with the participation of people and local public representatives. Oman Air country manager Savio D'Souza said the drive began from the entrance of the office in Agrabad commercial area at 10:30am. During the campaign, D'Souza talked to the roadside shopkeepers to inspire them and make them take a vow to keep their surroundings clean and free from pollution. Kashem, one of the shopkeepers, said he would try to maintain hygiene and keep his neighbourhood clean. “We mainly got inspired after a report was published in The Daily Star on October 12. From it, we learned the students of Sunshine Grammar School and College had taken an initiative to clean their surroundings by themselves,” D'Souza said. “We thought if the school students can take such initiatives, why don't we?" “I am very happy. Now I feel myself clean”, he said, adding that they would try to continue the programme. D'Souza said Oman Air had also contacted other corporate offices to initiate similar programme as part of corporate social responsibility (CSR). “Some of the corporate houses have shown their interest in launching a cleaning campaign jointly with us”, he said. Oman Air reservation supervisor Rashed Bin Ali said they all were very pleased to have joined the campaign and hoped many more would take up such programmes having learned from them. “It is not possible for us alone to clean up the whole city, but we believe that others will come forward with this sort of campaign, and one day we will see no dirt on the city streets”, he added. A councillor of Chittagong City Corporation (CCC), Sekander Alam, along with others officials of CCC and a good number of locals took part in the cleaning campaign.
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