Now, folk artistes to educate rural people

In a first-of-itskind initiative, Sangam city based Indian Folk Art Federation has roped in 1000 folk artistes who will educate rural people of the state on the ills of open defecation.

This will help the Yogi government achieve the open defecation free status across the state under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan of the PM.

The Federation has decided to launch the campaign from Allahabad in coordination with the district administration and the zila panchayat.

Folk artistes from 22 states are associated with the Federation. It also organised a three-day training workshop at the Prayag Sangeet Samiti to train these folk artistes so that they can deal with rural people on the important issue in an effective way.

District magistrate Sanjay Kumar, chief development officer Samuel N Paul and municipal commissioner Harikesh Chaurasia too participated in the workshop that concluded on Tuesday.

“Folk artistes are also the rural people who can make other villagers understand well about the ills of defecating in the open. With this concept, the Federation has now decided to engage folk artistes in the noble mission in a strategic way,” said Federation’s programme convener Dheeraj Agarwal.

As per the plan, Agarwal said, the tra ined folk artistes would visit rural areas in teams wherein they would hold meetings with people to motivate them to use toilets. Besides, these artistes would also make them understand the objective behind the PM’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and inform people about the grants being given by the state government to build toilets at homes, he added. The mission is to cover the entire state and this will be achieved in a phased manner. However, the Federation will be happy to extend its help and support to government of other states too if they contact us in this regard,” said Agarwal. DM Sanjay Kumar said the initiative was a welcome step.

Folk artistes are also the rural people who can make other villagers understand well about the ills of defecating in the open DHEERAJ AGARWAL, Federation’s programme convener