Teens at the Young Writers' Club have studied about rivers, pollution and its impact on the lives of people. These are often part of the study material that needs to be read, absorbed and written in exams for 'marks'. Could all of this have a larger than the textbook impact on the way the world works?
Olympics 2024 is one of the most anticipated Games event that brings the best of sportspersons from across the world. It happens once in four years giving the host country ample time to prepare.
Olympics 2024 is scheduled to begin from the 26th of July in Paris. The global sports event will be showcasing the very best in a wide arena of sports ranging from archery, running, cycling to wrestling and weight lifting. From India, 117 athletes have qualified across 16 sports disciplines, comprising of 70 men and 47 women. They will be competing for 95 medals across 69 events.
Romantic river in Paris is no different from polluted rivers in the developing world! It got a makeover thanks to the Olympics!
Significant amongst the preparations was the cleanup of the river La Seine in Paris. The river has been badly polluted over more than a century on account of the sewage infrastructure that was established some 150 years ago by Napolean’s city planner Georges-Eugène Haussmann. His approach combined waste and stormwater runoff to be collected in the same network. Imagine this happening for more than a century! Needless to say the river grew even more polluted and resulted in end of marine life. Efforts have been ongoing to remedy the situation since the 1980s. Automated spillways fitted with valves are in place. But these efforts have not done much to eliminate the problem. Untreated waste continued to flow into the river. Figuring out alternative ways to prevent flooding and avoiding untreated waste from flowing into the river has been a complicated engineering challenge.
Preparing for the Olympics- polluted La Seine breathes after a long time
30 years effort and more than 1 billion dollar investment in cleaning up the river finally materialized thanks to the pressing deadline of the Olympics scheduled to be held in Paris. Swimming events are to be held in the river. In the days leading upto the event, there has been massive efforts to spread the message across the public that the river is now safe for a swim.
Hosting the Olympics is a matter of honor and hugely beneficial especially for service economy
Months of planning goes on to host a global event such as the Olympics. Players from across the world need to be provided accommodation, food catering to their specific dietary requirements, arenas where the events are scheduled need to be made ready, transport in place, tickets be sold, the list goes on. Needless to say countless number of people come together to create the most memorable event for the year in the city in which the Olympics is conducted. There are plenty of jobs and money to be made. Everything needs to be a perfect. A dirty polluted river can be a huge eye sore especially if swimming events are part of the charter. The Olympics is a big deal. Even more of a big deal for the hosting country.
If it is so important, that La Seine got cleaned up just in time, how to spread the message that the river is safe to swim?
What can the mayor do to foster trust and convey the message that the river water is clean and safe?
“The mayor could jump in for swim herself!” said one of the teens probably as a joke. Turns out that the mayor, Anne Hidalgo did just that.
“How about broadcasting on Twitter?” said another.
We wrapped up the discussion with more ideas for media coverage and of course, counting the days to first day of the Olympics!
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