Talya Jalil is not the one to sit around and wait for change. She is a go-getter, a practical person through and through and acts on impulse where it’s required. Only but recently, the A-Level student from Karachi Grammar School initiated a social campaign by the name of Dho-Lo project that aims to provide soaps to street children in exhange for empty plastic bottles that they collect. This easy, practical and lucrative project many of us might have thought about but never moved a finger to act upon. Talya Jalil did it. “Dho-Lo is part of a larger movement called Talya’s Bubble Initiative set up for kids by kids. We would like to provide a forum to get things done that are close to our hearts; where we can help others develop project ideas and provide logistical and even financial support. The origins of this initiative began when I was six years old with an auction of my paintings that raised money to buy toys for kids in orphanages. I have since planned, hosted and organised events ranging from bakery item sales to an independent musical play that was produced in its entirety by myself and fellow 15-year-olds. Having heard all my life that kids like me are brought up in a ‘bubble’, I would like to prove that we can reach out beyond it and contribute something meaningful, fresh and fun to our environment. My friends and I would rather think of the bubble as effervescent instead of isolating,” Jalil says, while talking exclusively to Daily Times. Jalil’s ambitious project came into light recently, when a video of her noble initiative went viral and started doing rounds of social media, where people actually noticed and personally offered assistance to the young girl. “I was brought up with a degree of hygiene that is just automatic now. I don’t really consciously think about it which is why it unsettles me to see kids on the streets playing in garbage and I found myself wondering if they were at all aware of the importance not just of the basics of personal hygiene but also of a clean environment. So the Dh-Lo project is not only about personal hygiene. It’s very much about simultaneously trying to spread eco awareness too. Karachi is worryingly coated with so much trash, most of which is non-biodegradable plastic and I realised that we need to do everything we can to try to address this problem. Jalil says her specific focus is and always been children as they are the future, they are the ones learning, growing and most flexible, they are the best investment to the benefit of all of us. She has run two very successful drives providing a mobile service out of a rickshaw that exchanges a bar of soap for five plastic bottles. She buys the soaps from her own savings while the money she earns from selling the bottles, that the children have collected for recycling, paid for the rickshaw service. “On our pilot run, we distributed a 100 soaps a day in exchange for 500 plastic bottles which, in turn, earned us the the Rs 500 for rickshaw rental. We actually ran out of soap on our first day as we did not anticipate the immense enthusiasm of the kids we encountered. We were at first unsure as to whether we would have to work hard to sell the idea and engage the children. However, we were thrilled to find that we had, in fact, completely underestimated the response. This experience has ignited my determination to continue this effort and I have planned more such drives over the next few months,” Jalil tells us. Jalil hopes more young people will come up with proactive responses to the issues that effect us all and she hope in the process that the street kids they’re collaborating with will be more conscious of the need for overall cleanliness for themselves and the environment. “There are people in all kinds of sectors trying to tackle a variety of issues. I don’t think I’m the first or the only one but it’s a huge city and I think every contribution counts. There are so many areas to cover and so many ways to make it fun and impactful,” she says. Jalil says currently, she’s interested in the conditions of women’s prisons. She is particularly keen to investigate what happens to children in prisons. She’s very excited about an internship over the summer with an organisation that deals with these issues. “I have also been approached by two of my juniors who want to do something about all the paper that gets thrown away at the end of the academic year,” she says. Published in Daily Times, May 6th 2018.