Chennai: The residents of RK Nagar have joined hands in a bid to make their neighbourhood clean and in a first, they have painted the walls of OSR Park in RK Nagar, to spur development activities as a community.
Over 40 residents from RK Nagar, who are members of Thiruveedhi Amman Koil Street Residents Association (TAKSRA), RK Nagar First Cross street Residents Association (FICRA) and the associations belonging to RK Nagar second street and second cross street along with people from L&T Ragamalika, a gated community to the wall painting drive with the help of NGO Karam Korpom, that has been carrying out the painting drive all around the neighbourhood.
Speaking about it, Bala from TAKSRA says, “Basically we are trying to transform the place and beautify the neighbourhood. The place where the park is present today was like a dumping yard before and we wanted to make sure that the park is used and managed by the residents of RK Nagar together as a community. This is the first wall-painting drive carried out by us in the park.”
The park was opened to the public just six months ago and this painting drive was organised to urge the residents to focus on maintaining the park. “We want to make it a safe and clean place, particularly for senior citizens and we are also trying to organise many activities in the park soon,” adds Bala.
The residents in RK Nagar are also trying to create a different model for residents association in the area. With TAKSRA creating a model by doing many development activities in the street for many years now, many other streets in RK Nagar have also come together to form residents association in their street. “Already there is FICRA for the First Cross street and slowly the second cross Street residents and the second street residents have now created an association.”
“In every street we have brought in residents to create association and have identified champions who will drive activities. Unlike any large association, we are bringing in people to have a sense of ownership on their street and focus on their street exclusively. All the residents associations in the streets will come together to represent RK Nagar. By this way, the people will feel more responsible and the community will also expand,” says Bala.