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Good Deeds

I love the idea of getting tourists to clean up after themselves and earn rewards along the way. It seems where the conditions are distressed enough the locals need to be incentivized in the same way to do good

In return for small environmental actions – like cycling to attractions or fishing litter out of the canals – visitors have been rewarded with small gifts such as free ice-cream and museum tours.

First thought that crossed my mind is Kolkata - as far away and different from Copenhagen as any place can be. Maybe because I have seen the squalor and lack of concern for the environment so closely and its my home town - bringing the Copenhagen model seemed so logical. There won't be any ice-creams or museum tours to give away in Kolkata but rewarding civic responsibility is still feasible. 

You pull a group together and clean up trash one day, the whole group earns a day off from their place of work and are covered in local television. A high school pulls a volunteer crew of kids together to plant trees or dredge a pond, all students get credit for the work in their board exam. If certain number of outcomes are delivered by the group, they get an offset on their college tuition from the government. 

Somehow I know this will not be feasible in Kolkata and for reasons I can no longer fathom given the disconnect from the place over decades. But one can dream for a minute of impossible things coming true; by some miracle Kolkata turning whole again. In the meanwhile there is more sobering reality - my elderly parents joining their neighbors in a protest march over the horrific tragedy that speaks to what Kolkata has now become.

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