“Mumbai ke liye kuch bhi karega” (I will do anything for Mumbai)! With a tagline like that, every Mumbai heart gets inspired to contribute to the cause of making this dynamic city more liveable. Shishir Joshi, CEO and Founder Trustee of Project Mumbai, believes that it is the citizens who need to get actively involved in the process to bring about change and development in the city.
Project Mumbai was conceived in 2018 as a model of public-private-people partnership motivating lakhs of locals to participate in sustainability initiatives.
While Mumbai remains chaotic yet exciting, it faced a trust deficit then. People wanted to contribute to a better city but were unsure how to go about it. “It was a chance visit to a municipal hospital which led to not just an opportunity to create a navigation system for citizens through collaboration of like-minded people but also exposed us to one of our verticals, mental health. That was when we decided to set up a process to create a citizen-led organisation where Mumbai was treated like a project. Thus, the name, Project Mumbai.”
As a model of Public-Private-People partnership, we have a mission of making Mumbai and the extended MMR a better place to live, work and play with every citizen volunteering to do his or her bit for the community and Project Mumbai playing the role of a catalyst ensuring social transformation through initiatives of scale.”
Shishir Joshi
There has been no looking back since. Just over five years now and the initiative is impacting over 1.6 crore lives, which is about 9,000 people every day. “Sustainability, mental health (primarily of adolescents) and inclusivity (for the differently abled and elderly) are our immediate key verticals, but we remain very active in 25 other areas. We are now a go-to organisation for citizens, and through their support and volunteering, are working to make Mumbai the country’s Kindness Capital.
“As strong implementors, we work top down with the government, the private sector, like-minded institutions and volunteers with each of these stakeholders being critical to building a robust urban environment model.”
Project Mumbai’s sustainability initiatives are led by two flagship projects
• Mumbai Plastic Recyclothon and
• Jallosh (cleaning Mumbai’s water bodies)
The Plastic Recyclothon, including e-waste, sees lakhs of citizens donate their plastic waste with the larger purpose being behavioural change and no plastic to the landfill. It is dedicated to tackling waste in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region.
It is a community-driven, fortnightly event to segregate and recycle waste. “Through a series of awareness sessions, coordinated collection drives, and innovative recycling techniques, we collect between 2-2.5 tonnes of plastic each month. We have conducted over 100 collection drives and engaged more than 400,000 volunteers. Together, we have diverted 110 tonnes of plastic from landfills.”
The waste is recycled into amenities like benches, pencil boxes, pots, walking tracks, garbage bins and tee shirts, to name a few, through a CSR-led transparent system. Many gardens and housing societies have seating made from plastic generated by citizens and benches for municipal schools too are made through the same process.
The Jallosh initiative of protecting Mumbai’s water bodies sees thousands every month step out and clean beaches, mangroves, rivers and lakes. Volunteers have to choose a location and spend two hours at the designated waterbody for clean-up after being provided with gloves and instructions on how to segregate the waste. There is no age bar or educational qualification or time restriction for volunteering and we have senior citizens, housewives, teenagers and working professionals all contributing with their efforts. Both these initiatives are in the Limca Book of Records as the largest public-private-people-led initiatives across India.
Other sustainability initiatives include launching zero waste (no plastic, e-waste, dry and wet waste) in 10 selected schools across Mumbai and in film studios and every ward in the city in partnership with the municipal corporation for plastic and e-waste.
In the last five years, Project Mumbai has been recognised with multiple awards, including the United Nations SDG award 2020, the Green NGO of the year award by the International Advertising Association, the iVolunteer Hero of the year award, and the Best Start-up NGO of the Year award from Ketto, to name a few. Project Mumbai’s sustainability initiatives have also won multiple international awards.
Initiatives in the offing include being the knowledge partner to the municipal corporation to make Mumbai
• An inclusive and accessible city for the differently abled and elderly,
• Rediscovering the city and mapping the cultural history of its roads,
• Mobilizing citizens to beautify 30 of the city’s railway stations,
• Creating zero waste garden from recycled plastic and
• Gender-safety audit of Mumbai’s roads
But the most important focus remains on building India’s largest ecosystem of volunteering.
But the most important focus remains on building India’s largest ecosystem of volunteering.