Media Release

Mangaluru, Mar 8: To mark the Women’s Day celebration, the women of Fajir prepared two plastic brick benches which were inaugurated by Fr Sunil Viegas the parish priest Fajir Church along with Fr Oswald Monthiero the director of CODP Mangaluru on March 8 at Fajir church premises.

CODP is celebrating Women’s Day in a unique way by promoting cleanliness drive in different places this week. The SHGs in different places organized cleanliness drive in the city and villages too.

Fr J B Saldanha parish priest Permannur church inaugurated the programme at Ambedkar ground Thokkottu, Permannur with other guests; Vani Alva, Fr Oswald Montheiro and the office bearers of SHGs and Ullal municipality.

In her chief guest address, Vani appreciated the efforts and contributions of people in making Ullal's surrounding clean. Fr Oswald, the director of CODP said that this year Women’s Day is celebrated by cleaning the surroundings and creating awareness among the public. Fr J B Saldanha urged the public to make Ullal taluk clean and corruption free.

In his message Fr Assisi D Almeida, the advocate said at Fajir Women’s Day celebration that a mother plays an important role in the family. Women have given prominence in Indian law; therefore all women must be aware of the laws that safeguard women in the country.

Fr Oswald in his message at Fajir, appreciated the efforts of women in preparing plastic brick benches and their initiative in making a plastic free country. He also urged to plant trees as a response to Laudato Si Campaign of the diocese.

SHG members explained the process of preparing plastic brick benches in the following steps:

• Gathering plastic bottles of the same size, fill empty bottles with plastic waste
• Stuff them tightly with an iron rod, that the bottle becomes hard like stone. Usually seven to eight hours are required to make the bottle hard
• After preparing the hard bottles, select a place where the bench has to be made
• Build the foundation with a cement and concrete base
• Arrange the bottles in the shape of a bench with clay and level the surface with cement and cure it with water for a few days.