Why Eco-clubs? The extent of the environmental damage inflected on environment and the ill effects of continuing this degradation need not be stressed. A small effort towards combating this situation are Eco-clubs. With financial support from the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Govt. of India, Nrityanjali initiated 35 Eco-clubs in 35 schools of Secunderabad and Hyderabad.

Eco-clubs activities? Eco-clubs were initiated to create awareness in school children who are the future safeguards of society and enviroment. To create awareness among them they were involved in various activities like massive tree plantations, developing green lung areas, debates, quiz programs, painting and also training to become role models for fellow students.

The Team? To initiate Eco-clubs in schools, all teachers in that school are first trained on environmental issues by a Project co-ordinator. One interested teacher., is selected out of these, and given training to initiate a Eco-club and work on it. Taking 10 interested students from each class the teacher then prepares a team of 30 interested students. Learning about different environmental issues the students gradually learn to handle the club independently.

The Achievements? The statistics : 35 schools, 400 students, 35 school teachers, 1 co-ordinator, 350 teachers' training have collectively made the concept of Eco-clubs a big success. They contributed in greening the school premises, individual homes and green lungs around the city. The Hyderabad Urban Development Authority, the Forests Department and the Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad have supplied large number of saplings to make this program a success. Imminent citizens and distinguished personalities like Mr.Purshotam Reddy readily made themselves available for various programs and kept the motivational levels of the Eco-club members, high.

The future? The academy continues to work on initiatives developed on environment. But to make the Eco-clubs sustainable the academy plans to orient the school Principals to assume responsibility of the Eco-clubs and empower the Eco-club student.