Airtel Run for Education, scheduled on November 24th, is taking a deeper dig into the causes of global concern this time. With providing education for the underprivileged children as their primary motto, another big initiative this time is to ensure a pollution-free event through plogging along the run route.

This Kolkata born fundraising half marathon saw its inception in 2014 and has since been funding construction of classrooms in schools around Kolkata. This has facilitated bringing education to numerous needy children of the country who were so long deprived of the light of knowledge. The Round Table India, a national organization that works for the benefit of the country, conceptualized this event with the idea of ‘Freedom Through Education’. The noble cause behind this event has successfully drawn support from humans of the city and established Run for Education as the biggest half marathon of the city.

Education does bring freedom to our minds, souls, and bodies, and it is through the same education that we are made aware of and sensitive towards the greater concerns of life on Earth – plastic pollution being one of the greatest. Non-biodegradability, waterlogging, litter, the release of toxic pollutants from petroleum and petroleum-based plastic are only a few of the uncountable environmental hazards that the earth is suffering from. While the Government does it’s best to curb the increase of plastic pollution in the country, it comes down as the sole responsibility of each citizen to understand the cause and do their best to support it. Keeping this in mind, Airtel Run for Education 2019 has decided to make sure that the marathon leaves no litter behind after completion of the run. To ensure this, the organizers have arranged for plogging to be exercised throughout the half marathon track on the day of the event.

Plogging is a combination of jogging/running with picking up litter from the roads. First started by Sweden around 2016, plogging is now one of the noblest activities practiced across the globe. The biggest threat to the 21st-century world is plastic pollution, and plogging can make a significant difference to the time remaining before the earth meets its end due to pollution. Prime Minister Narendra Modi took up plogging as a part of the ‘Swachh Bharat Movement’ to clean the country, where millions of citizens joined in and were made introduced to the importance and the nobility of the act. The activity also serves as a 360-degree fitness workout for the body by combining variations of body movements like bending, squatting, stretching with the primary actions of running, walking or jogging.

The Artel Run for Education will have ploggers from various walks of life, all coming together to make sure that the run leaves no trash behind. This 2019 leg of the half marathon expects to see a participation of more than 8,000 runners, novice or professionals – a number huge enough to cause potential plastic pollution to the running route that will start and end at City Centre 1, Salt Lake on the morning of 24th. Techno India in association with Airtel Run for Education has come forward to support the cause and conduct the plogging activity with participation in heavy numbers.

Participants of the plogging activity will be carrying reusable bags to collect the trash and a heart of sympathy and love for the city! Our hands may be dirtied, but our souls will be cleansed by helping our City of Joy preserve mother nature. While so many people are coming forward to support the environmental and educational cause of  Airtel Run for Education, you too let your feet join in and do a happy deed on the morning of 24th November!