Coping with Covid-19 Shutdown: 200 families reaping benefits of gardening
Family squabbles were becoming all too common in many houses where family members had been spending most of their time together under one roof during the ongoing months-long shutdown.
A number of students, who returned home in Nilphamari town from different universities and colleges that closed due to the shutdown, came up with a creative solution to the problem of their hometown.
After receiving free seeds and fertiliser from the students, as many as 200 families in the town are now making best use of their free time by doing gardening in their lawns or on the roofs of their houses.
The volunteer students, under the banner 'Sabujayan Protidhwani', have also been providing free gardening tips to households over phone that remains open 24 hours a day.
The students decided to popularise gardening not only because it is a rewarding family activity, but also because it offers a variety of health benefits. Besides, gardening provides nutritious fresh vegetables and fruits to the table of a family while it brightens the atmosphere of a locality with colourful flowers.
The townspeople have welcomed the students' green movement with open heart. Now the landscape of the town has turned somewhat green with a good number of lawns and rooftops adorned with gardens.
New Babupara area resident Jahanara Nazneen, a teacher at a government school, said, "I was sick and tired of not having school for so long. Finally, persuaded by Sabujayan Protidhwani members, my husband and I cultivated a vegetable garden in the house yard.
"Now that we've been getting a plenty of different vegetables including laal shak (red amaranth), danta shak (stem amaranth), paat shak (jute greens), tomato and bottle gourd from the garden, we don't even get out and spend money at the market on vegetables," she added.
Retired government employee SM Mobarak Hussain, a resident of Meladangi area, had a more serious reason for putting his mind to gardening. "Staying in the house all the time was causing frequent bickering between me and my wife."
"But we don't quarrel anymore. Now we mostly stay busy at the vegetable garden in our yard -- thanks to suggestions made by my neighbour's son who goes to Chittagong University (CU)," the senior citizen said cheerfully.
Sabujayan Protidhwani Coordinator Firoz Shohag, an MPhil student at Jahangirnagar University (JU), said they launched the programme in early March with the objective to help people overcome the doldrums of staying home for a prolonged time during the shutdown imposed to contain the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
The programme, inspired by a similar green movement of JU students on the university campus and its surrounding areas, in the meantime would also help the country achieve food security in a post-pandemic scenario, he hoped.
The helpline has been set up to ensure that people keep their community safe from the spread of the pandemic by staying at home, he said.
During a visit , this correspondent found a large group of students -- including Jahanul Habib Ruku of JU, Jannatul Ferdousi of Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University (SAU), Shoumik Hossain of CU, Broti Roy of Rajshahi University and Neyamul Islam of Nilphamari Government College (NGC) -- actively volunteering for the green movement.
SAU student Jannatul Ferdousi said she helps the volunteers with information on gardening and at present 25 to 30 students in the group are making financial contributions to bear the expenses of Sabujayan Protidhwani.
On their method of convincing, Neyamul Islam of NGC said creating a nice garden at the house of a volunteer is the best way to convince anyone into gardening and this technique has helped them persuade 200 families into gardening in their own houses.
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