KOCHI: Sensing the impact wrought by rampant urban encroachment on the city, Redrawlife, a community-based organisation, took up brooms and paintbrushes and chose a spot in one of the city's most crowded areas to demonstrate how Kochi can be made to look beautiful and clean even amidst untrammelled urbanisation.
'Redraw Kochi' organised by Redrawlife volunteers cleared a spot in the busy Kaloor Junction that was strewn with garbage and gave it a facelift.
"We feel Kochi is going to see an accelerated pace in its growth and development in the coming years. This pace in growth should be balanced with a crowd that takes care of the city," says Joel Kuriakose, one of the co-founders of Redrawlife.
Joel, along with Sreeraj and Vishnu, started Redrawlife as a space for people to pursue their passions and thereby add to what makes life in Kochi interesting. The team started off by bringing in travel and adventure activities, including a paratrooping event earlier this week.
At 7.00 am on Sunday, Redrawlife volunteers arrived at the said spot, cleared the area of garbage and gave it a new face and planted fresh saplings. The wall has also been painted and ornamented with graffiti in a manner resembling Warli Art.
Sunday's event, Joel said, was about creating a social movement among people of Kochi to be responsible and responsive towards the city they live in. "We don't want Kochi to follow the footsteps of other developed cities like Bengaluru (latest IISc report stating the metro to be unlivable in the next 5 years). Hence we believe our first Redraw Kochi initiative will set an example and make people feel they are part of a bigger cause," he said. Redraw Kochi is, in fact, inspired by a similar movement that originated in Bengaluru called The Ugly Indian, where volunteers chose to clean that urgently required a facelift.
With the city on the thrust of becoming an economic and commercial hub, the Redrawlife team is hopeful that Kochiites will take this cause-driven initiative to heart.