Over 80 people unite to celebrate love through cleanliness drive in Imphal

Imphal: While Valentine’s Day is often associated with roses and romantic love, Imphal witnessed a different expression of love on Feb 14.Several people, mostly youths, marked the day with service.

They organised a large-scale cleanliness drive along Lamphel Road in Imphal West, determined to make the city cleaner and greener.The cleanliness drive was initiated under the banner of ‘For Better Kangleipak’, a youth-led collective promoting civic responsibility for a better Manipur. The volunteers transformed Valentine’s Day into a powerful statement of civic responsibility, demonstrating that genuine love extends beyond personal relationships and includes care for the environment and the society.More than 80 volunteers, including children, students and elders, gathered in the morning with a shared resolve to reclaim public space from mounting garbage. Armed with gloves, masks and determination, the participants worked in coordinated teams, clearing roadside litter.By the time the drive concluded, over 160 bags of trash that were found scattered across the area were collected, transforming stretches of the roadside into cleaner, more breathable ground.

Chongtham Cheenglailakpa of the collective said he, along with his friend Wangkheimayum Mangal, both 21, took it upon themselves to start such a movement after seeing piles of garbage scattered at Cheiraoching, a hilltop attraction in Imphal. “That was around seven months ago, when just the two of us started our activity to keep public spaces clean. Now, we have several volunteers ready to join us in promoting civic responsibility,” Cheenglailakpa told TOI.The group of volunteers clean up public spaces and the videos of the activities are being posted on social media, with the message that cleanliness is a shared duty.