Best lessons on Sustainability from People and Children in villages

By the end of August, I was back to Ujire from the Himalayas and it seemed like the mountains of Western Ghats had shrunk in size all of a sudden, but still they always struck me with their beauty; I can stay for hours just staring at those mountains from the Selco Labs. By Septmeber 2014, children had already started working on the innovations and whenever they made something, like a toy, or grass cutting machine, they always fascinated me with their creativity. One cool innovation that I think was dear to me was bags made from Areca and how children in one school stitched together chips packets to make a carry bags. I used to see excitement in Sushmitha, Mamthaz and Nishkala (my colleagues who worked on Invention Education) whenever children made something and I could make that out from their face, that, today they have something exciting to show! And whenever I traveled to Yadgir, Naveen and Yallamma (my colleagues who worked on Invention Education in Yadgir) proudly showed all the items that children had made.

Areca bag was something I always carried with me, a sign of innovation and sustainability made by a 7th grade student

What children showed me was that innovation is not always what we perceive. I always thought innovation is making robots and making something that changes the whole world in an instant. I started digging deeper and looked for the meaning of the term 'Innovation' in the dictionary and all it said was 'make changes in something established, esp. by introducing new methods, ideas, or products', and children did that creatively.

I had been a person who always had environment and sustainability in the forefront, at least when I was 18(as much as I remember) and always trying to reason 'how can I live sustainably'. Suddenly one day everything seemed to demystify. My frequent visits in and out of Ujire, Yadgir and Bangalore, slowly opened up to me, how people in villages live a sustainable life. If you talk about recycling and reusing, children showed me that they are pro at that. Yes, we did keep them motivated and brainstorm with them for ideas, but what we found was that now they had a platform to showcase their creativity. They used old wires, umbrellas, tarpaulin sheets, areca sheets, chips packets, etc.

In the villages, the food waste is mostly used as manure for plants and sometimes given to cows. In one of the schools, the children would discard the left overs in a vessel and it was given to the house next door who would use it to feed the cows!! Isn't that sustainability, and children practicing that at school!! And there is an eating place in Ujire where the cows happily come in and eat from 'their' bowl and go out. Yes, that is sustainability to me, where animals feel at home!

She feels at home, the lovely cow!!

One thing I realized is that to live your life you don't really need all the 'stuff' that you think you need. Say for example, 20 different types of shoes. Really ? I have to share my experience at a beach in Mangalore. It was lovely afternoon and I wanted to have some quite time with my friend at the beach. Since it was getting very hot, we were walking towards the mangroves, and it looked so clear and pristine, but as I stood there for sometime, I saw slippers, and bulbs floating in the water. They were in huge numbers and I stood there thinking 'Deepti, do you realize the sandals and slippers, and bulbs that you throw away can enter the marine ecosystem.' It was that day I decided I will not buy a new pair of sandals, or slippers unless I absolutely need it. I wanted to live the life with the value, 'less is beautiful'.

Traveling through the vast stretches of corn and lentil fields in Yadgir and walking through the paddy fields in villages in Ujire, I realized farming is so close to nature and walking through the fields brings so much happiness deep within me. Also, every villager I met, every child always showed kindness and love. A key ingredient to grow and nurture anything in life, be it paddy or lentils or groundnuts, or a baby!!

The paddy from the south of Karnataka (above), and lentils from the North of Karnataka (below).

By the end of October, I started realizing it will be nice to study, to have a Masters in Education. And by now I had a clear idea of what I wanted, outdoors, and experiential education. I wanted to learn more about these aspects, I had the urge to seek more knowledge and that is when I found, tada, Masters Programme in Outdoor Environmental Education and Outdoor Life at Linkoping University. As usual, I sent in the application, and went through the normal procedures for gaining admission into this university.

Meantime, it was November and I realized I missed the children from GHPS, Kukkavu whom I used to teach before and I so much wanted to go and meet them. So, one fine Sunday, I took my cycle and traveled 18kms to meet them and surprise them. I was so very happy to see them after a long time, talk to them and spend a whole day with them. They were like, 'Deepti Madam' with a smile and I would beam with happiness. We visited many houses of my students and at one of the houses, the student was out for work, but I asked his mother to convey my regards to him. And then we all went to the river, bathed and splashed water on each other having a great time together.

Water, sun and the lovely students

I didn't want to leave them, but to my surprise when I returned home, one of the students whom I couldn't meet, called me up and said, 'Madam, you could have told me you were coming, then I would not have gone out for work.' The satisfaction that I had after the call, is something I cannot explain, but I still feel it today when I recollect.

During November, the we started kitchen garden in schools and do you want to see how enthusiastic the children were, well, I let the pictures do the talking.

Getting the land ready for the seeds

Can you see an innovation here? Well I would say it was quite innovative of the children to make a hole and sprinkle the cow dung water mixture to the soil.

Meanwhile, soon came December and we were making solar cookers from waste cardboard. This was one of those activities that children would love to do anytime. Just imagine making a cooker by yourself and cooking food in that. Off course,  its exciting. All the inventions, fire, firewood, etc. has been around the food you see ;)

Children of seventh grade working together with an old Umbrella to make a solar cooker

One of the school had an annual day soon and the teachers wanted to know whether I could choreograph and teach a dance to the students. I was actually excited, but the school is a bit far and the first bus was at 8.15. But I had to be there at 8.15, so that I could teach dance to the students. So, I used to take another route and the first bus was at 7.00 (as my vague memory says). I had to walk nearly 5 Kms with my heavy laptop to reach the school. But it was a delight to see the students learn the dance with so much dedication. Though it was hard, you know what was the reward. One of the students came up to me and said 'Thank you teacher for teaching the dance.' She was one of those who had the love for dance, and I could see that in her when she danced. I smiled and that 'Thank you', is something so special because she really meant it!

The dance troupe

And here comes January and we were getting ready for the Invention Fair 2015 !! It was one of the important events for the team Invention Education and also for the students who were ready to show everyone what they had made!! Oh, the excitement of the students and the team resonates as I write this. Vishal and Suhas bhaiyyas were those who really helped us with the local logistics. It took a lot of efforts to organize this, and it was the first time this region was having an 'Invention Fair'. But on February 28th 2015 during the Invention Fair I see the children having fun, one special moment when I see one of the students, who was really shy and not confident when we started the programme, because of his difficulties with reading and writing and we know how the education system is biased to reading and writing. But guess what, he stood there confidently explaining to every stranger what he had made. Isn't that worth the efforts!! And having had my lessons on sustainability from the students and the villagers, we inaugurated the programme by planting a sapling and made sure we did  not use any plastics, and used areca plates to give food to the 500 odd students and teachers who were at the Fair.

Well this lovely journey with the villagers, and students and lovely people I worked with increased my desire to study, to seek knowledge on sustainability and education and to contribute more for the nature, and by March, I decided to pursue my dream to be educationist in love with outdoors! Thats how the road led to Linkoping. Now we have reached a milestone, Linkoping, in this journey, we have to wait till we get aboard the next blog with a lots of new stories from Linkoping!!