Nettoyer la plage est amusant! (In French-Beach Cleaning is Fun!’) Group of French Students Clean Debris at Ullal Beach
Mangaluru: While PM Narendra Modi was having a leisurely and fun time in France for a few days in the company of the President of France, here in the outskirts of Mangaluru, Ullal, with a mission to clean marine debris and plastic waste at Ullal Beach, students from France collaborated locally and collected over 2,000kg of ocean debris in six days. Most of the collected waste was fishing nets and plastic. The waste collected was handed over to the local body for disposal.
Un Autre Monde, a student-led association from France, collaborated with the Indian Student Community (ISC) as part of the Indo-French Student Sustainability Project. The French students took up projects in Terdal, Vijayapura and Ullal. Dhruv Jatti, founder of, the Indian Student Community (ISC) speaking to Team Mangalorean said, ” A delegation of 12 students from the Audencia Business School in France arrived on June 7 and spent 46 days on three different sustainability projects. They redeveloped two government schools in Terdal. The schools were in bad shape, and they focussed on the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of clean water and sanitation for all. They built washrooms and painted the school based on the SDG to raise awareness.
“They then went to Vijayapura and with the help of SPPA, an NGO, planted about 60 saplings. This is going to become an annual event. Next year, we hope to get students from the Philippines, Australia and France,” said Dhruv, who accompanied the French students along with Suraj Sudarshan and Meeshanka Balaji throughout their journey.
On the ocean sustainability project, Mathilde Recoque, a student from France, said that they would undertake a comparative study on ocean sustainability techniques used in France and India. They also visited a seafood factory. She further said “We noticed that there were a few garbage bins in the cities and waste recycling is minimal. Ocean Cleanup, an NGO has developed technology to remove small pieces of plastic to large debris from the ocean and the same could be adopted. This act should encourage more Indians to take up beach cleaning activities”.
Ms Vani Alva- the commissioner in charge of the Ullal municipal council speaking to Team Mangalorean said, “The students of France referred by our state speaker U T Khader, was given Ullal beach for cleaning purposes. I visited while the cleaning programme was going on. While normally students will be interested in playing in the sea but these French students did an excellent job from morning till evening for a week keeping the beach tidy. I appreciate the commitment of the French students, showing their love and concern for a small Indian City, thousands of miles away from their hometown. I wish them the best of luck in their future community-oriented projects”.
It was ISC that decided that the students work in the constituency represented by assembly speaker UT Khader in Dakshina Kannada. Yenepoya College hosted the students.
