– Kofi Annan Green Saviours — the Eco Club at St. Joseph’s Sr. Sec. School, has added another feather to their already overflowing caps, by winning the Best Eco Club Award for the fifth consecutive year, an achievement hitherto unknown to have been accomplished by any institution. On the occasion of World Environment Day, Mr Debendra Dalai, Chief Conservator of Forests cum Director, conferred the Best Eco Club Award upon Principal, Ms. Monica Chawla, The Eco Club Incharge, Ms. G. Nithya and Ms. Vandana Vats, the Head of the Department (Arts) and commended the endeavours made by the school over the years of stepping up and taking up the cudgels of protecting the eco fabric of the city.

It is a truly commendable feat to be able to continue to plan and execute such a variety of activities related to protecting the environment especially with so many Covid restrictions in place. But achieving the impossible is soon becoming the norm at St. Joseph’s under the able guidance of Principal Ms. Monica Chawla who has been the at the helm of planning and organising diverse activities for the Green Saviours along with her enterprising team of facilitators who work in tandem to bring each project to life.

Ms. Chawla has always emphasised on the need to introduce the values of green living through the concepts of cleanliness, sanitation and being eco-friendly, among all the Josephians, right from Kindergarten to Senior students. She has frequently initiated and adopted unique concepts such as ‘Buyerarchy’ which highlights the need to implement the 5R’s in order to reduce our carbon footprints by curbing our desire to buy unnecessarily and ‘Green Dollars’ which has been implemented even via online teaching where students are rewarded with ‘Green Dollars’ for every Good Green Deed done by them.

Last year at the 12th Annual Summit of the GRIHA( Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment), St Joseph’s acquired the Ist Runner Up Position, under the GRIHA for Existing Day Schools, for its commitment to enhance resource efficiency so as to ensure and enhance the green footprint, by abiding by its mission statement of the 3 I’s- Intent, Implement and Impact. The Josephian family truly believe and advocate the fact that economy and ecology can co-exist and if we move on the right track, we may just be able to win this race against time to save our environment and our planet. St. Joseph’s is also the proud recipient of the Wipro Earthian Annual Awards which recognize excellence in sustainability in education in schools and colleges in India. The students demonstrated their understanding of biodiversity, waste and water through activity-based learning programs and written essays. The team of class X students mentored by Ms. Shivani won in the category ‘Sustainability and Water’ and have been invited to participate in the June 2021 programme, for which preparations are already underway.

Head Girl, Shreya Chawla, also following in the footsteps of her mentors, has also been felicitated as the ‘Rising Star’ by ‘Earth Day Network’ with many good green deeds to her name. An inimitable initiative conceptualised by her has been the ‘Eco Brick’ Drive, wherein the Josephians made around a 1000 ECO BRICKS by putting all the plastic waste to good use- which has been implemented by all the members of the School Cabinet spearheaded by the Head Girl, Shreya Chawla and Head Boy, Jayant Sharma. Their endeavours in galvanising the students to contribute during the lockdown is truly appreciable.