A civic work requires investment and maintenance. The task is more daunting when it comes to addressing the issue of dumping sites on roadsides in a place like Dimapur town where there is definitely lack civic sense among many citizens.
But this has not deterred Ronika Miachieo from converting a dumping place into a sort of mini-park just in front of the gate of the directorate of food and civil supplies here.
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“Every time I pass through dumping sites on the roadsides in the town, something pricks me and breaks my heart,” says Miachieo.
She lives with her father at Burma Camp here and is originally from Kohima village in Kohima district.
“I believe cleanliness is next to godliness. My aim is also to save the environment and do something for the good of the people,” she added.
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Miachieo said though she approached many people to help convert the littered place in front of the directorate into something beautiful, they refused.
So, she got into the job with whatever little earning she has.
She joined the Nagaland food and civil supplies department’s directorate as a contractual employee under integrated management of public distribution scheme five months ago.
However, seeing her doing the job, a pastor from a nearby area offered to help her and brought in his sister, who is an artist and painter, to do the painting on the walls near the site on nominal charge.
A graduate from North East Hills University (NEHU) in Shillong, and a social worker, Miachieo has an artistic and creative mind.
She gathered toner cartridges used to print ration cards in the directorate to decorate the site besides planting seasonal flowers there.
She has also made sheds and put up benches for the passersby to rest at the site.
Miachieo said she started beautifying the place by spending her own money, albeit the directorate of the food and civil supplies and some well-wishers came forward with little monetary help later.
She completed the work in a span of four months for which she earned accolades from her directorate, including additional director Sentirenla Jamir and deputy director Lanu, and the people of the Hill View colony where directorate is located.
Miachieo embarked on the journey of social work in the year 2014.
She provides books, stationary items and medicines to under-privileged students in five private schools in the Naga areas of Yinchungkhanmoi, Lakho etc in Myanmar along the Indo-Myanmar border.
Miachieo also set up a library in one of these schools.
When asked how she manages to arrange these items, she said some doctors in Dimapur give her sample medicines while some well-wishers provide her books and stationary items for distribution among poor children on the other side of the border.
She said she visits these villages twice a year to distribute the items
In 2018, she took up the challenging job of cleaning up a 900-feet long drain in Walford area here.
The Dimapur Municipal Council provided her with machineries and labourers to clean the clogged drain that floods the entire Walford area during rainy season.
Besides being a social worker, Miachieo is also an entrepreneur.
She supplies spices brought from south India in Dimapur and other parts of Nagaland.
Miachieo also makes pickles and supplies them in other north-eastern states.
She does all these all by herself without keeping any employee to show the dignity of labour to the young Naga generation.