Climate Solutions Project
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Day called Tiloniya
Unbathed plants, barren soil, chilly winds, brown scenery are the best words to describe the village of Tilonia. While travelling in train is fun, driving across the countryside in Reva we have had our share of adventures and no doubt Tilonia possibly was one of the most technologically advanced villages we have been. At the same time, we had our enjoyable moment driving on Kuccha roads leading to the Barefoot College in Tilonia.
Punching Newton
Authored by Paul Lincoln (paurincorn)
Solar Punch just finished a concert for 350 school kids and their teachers at the beautiful Mangal Newton school (mangalnewton.com) This is an extraordinary school founded by Yash Mangal dedicated to the proposition that no child should have to leave Beawar, Rajasthan to get an excellent education. In the second year of operation, the school has doubled in size and has a facility equal to anywhere in the world. The kids are extremely engaged and reacted uproariously to the concert. They were shouting out climate solutions as well as refrains of disdain for plastic. Beyond the fun of the moment, Mr. Mangal is educating children from this underdeveloped region as thoughful scholars and citizens aware of their environment.
They can also scream their lungs out during a rock concert.
Like Origami, Clothing Scraps turned into beautiful paper designs
Authored by Paul Lincoln
Just outside of Beawar, India, Sethi Khatri uses previously discarded scraps from the manufacture of clothing to make the most beautiful paper objet d’art: bags, wine cases, envelopes, diaries, jewelry boxes, file racks, book marks and gift paper in every color and hue. Some even have flowers and other exotica pressed into the paper.
The process is simple, instead of cutting down trees or using recycled paper, PG Handmade Paper, owned by Mr. Khatri, buys the scraps of material remaining from the manufacture of clothing. This material is shredded and then soaked in water for three hours. Organic dyes are added to the water for color. The water is clean enough to be used for gardening when the process is finished. At this point, PG can add flowers, to the mixture to make interesting patterns. The pulp is spread on a screen and covered with a cotton cloth. In a process called spreadation, the screen and pulp are then flipped over and spread on a slab. 500 of these sheets are then put in a hydrolic press that squeezes the water out of it. The paper is then hung out to dry. After cutting to size, PG then puts 30 sheets at a time between metal rollers to iron the paper flat. Quality control then separates out any paper with defects. An additional use of a glue screen can add raised glitter patterns, embossing or a leather look . The paper is in its final form and is ready for the market or it can be transformed into all of the products listed above.
Udaipur - NGO participation was very encouraging
Udaipur trip was one of the few trips we were eagerly waiting for. While the morning was a bit chilling, by the time we took off for the day, the sun was out and yes it was the perfect time to start with the day. The session started off with the founders introducing the concept of IYCN and the very need of such a movement.
IYCN energizing with the Green Camp
The 3rd weekend of Jan is one of the many occasions when the traffic on the Adi Shankarachaya road gets really bad, but for good reasons, one of them being TechfestIITB.
While the response on the Greencamp workshop which was conceptualized along with the techfest team was phenomenon ally amazing, looking at the participation and the crowd in real time was exhilarating.
Techfest, the Annual International Science and Technology Festival of IIT Bombay with nerve-racking Competitions to Lectures by noted luminaries, from incredible Workshops to fun-filled Ozone, Techfest 2009 had everything to conquer a child's imagination. The techfest tagline of Defying convention seemed to be apt for our climate solutions.
(Left: IIT student solar robot team)