In visitor-scarce Kashmir, two Germans broke the trend, only to end up sweeping Srinagar Streets! The two boys scheduled to stay for a week spared four days to clean parts of foreshore as they couldn’t imagine such a breathtaking beauty is left so unclean.
On January, 5, when two friends Neil Assmaun, 19, and Tjark, 19, from Berlin, Germany arrived Kashmir to enjoy the valley’s beautiful nature and landscape, they had never thought that they would end up by collecting garbage from the streets of Srinagar.
They believe that places like Kashmir have a natural beauty and one should maintain its charm by keeping it neat and clean.
A month earlier, after Neil and Tjark finished their schooling in Berlin Germany, they choose to go outside country for the holidays. However, Kashmir was the first place they planned to visit.
In the afternoon of January 5, when both the friends arrived at Srinagar airport, they boarded the cab till boulevard and spent the night in a houseboat. Next day, when they went to tour outside, the heaps of garbage lying on the roads disappointed them. “We were disheartened to see the garbage on the streets,” said one of the two friends Tjark.
The duo bought two pairs of hand gloves and big sized polythene bags to collect the trash.The duo dedicated their holidays to pick the trash from the streets of Srinagar. They cancelled their plan for mountain hiking and decided to make Kashmir garbage free.
Garbage on the roads puts a bad impression on the people especially on tourists and also affects the people living nearby. The purpose of their drive is to give message of keeping the surroundings neat and clean and also encourage the youth of Kashmir to keep the valley garbage free.