IWSB E Week’09 in association with NEN Day 3 - Shodhyatra

The Shodh yatra started from our hostel in Greater Noida to Dhankaur at 8:30 in the morning. There were a few experts from NIF,Honeybee Network who joined us for the day long journey. Representatives from AID, YUVA,Sristi Gyan Kendra,Sristi also joined us. Dhankaur was the first stop for us which was around 12 Km from Greater Noida. The first meeting took place at Vidya Mandir High school where there were around 500 kids waiting for us from different schools. We had Mr. Rajbir Singh, renowned Organic Farming Scientist who spoke with the kids for some time explaining them about the benefits of organic farming and why the farmers should depend less on chemical fertilizers. The kids participated well in the meeting asking questions intermittently, sometimes leaving the Rajbir Singh totally stumped. Sonia Suryavansi, Honeybee Network Collaborator from Uttranchal explained the purpose of Shodhyatra. Mr Kamaljeet from Sristi Gyan Kendra(Collaborator of Honeybee Network,Harayana) then spoke with the children for some time before asking them if there were any ideas they had which they would like to discuss with all of us, 2 kids came forward. The first kid said that he wanted to make a machine which would clean the walls covered with algae inside the wells. He said that he had seen his father struggling to clean the walls sometimes and felt he would design a hand held motor device with a cloth on one end which would clean the walls with less effort. The other kid said that he wanted to make a rubber coated bumper in front of the car as he saw his father’s car getting scratches on it sometimes. There were 2 other competitions taking place at the same time, recipe contest and bio diversity contest. The most interesting recipe came from a student who prepared a dish out of the skin of peas. It is said that the skin has a lot of nutritional value and gets wasted sometimes while cleaning the peas, so this innovation makes use of the skin and gives nutritional value at the same time.

We then moved towards our second destination, the S.D.S Senior Secondary school at Nevada, located around 5 Km from Dhankaur. Mr. Rajbir Singh spoke with the children and the teachers for sometime before taking lunch in the school. One thing that surprised all of us was the poor awareness level of the children. When Mr. Rajbir Singh asked if they knew who Bapu was, nobody answered, but when he asked if they knew who Munna bhai was, pat came the reply Sanjay Dutt. We got good collection of herbal practices from few students. Around 250 students participated in discussion & most of them participated in the competitions.Our next stop was at Salempur where there were around 500 kids waiting for us. We saw a great innovation from the school principal, Mr. Ashok Singh Bhati, who had devised a formula to translate sentences to English with a 3 step method. He had been teaching this method to the children of his school for the last 5 years and claims that the children in his school know English better than the kids from the other schools. His opinion was that English grammar books were often confusing for children from villages to follow, so he devised this mechanical way of translating sentences to English. We were really impressed with the knowledge this man possessed. We are taking his innovation forward via NIF,DST-Govt. of India.

We then moved to our final stop at Ladhpura, around 300 students of Govt. High school were waiting with several creative art works for us. We also received several practices in the Bio-diversity contest. Then we moved for a village meeting where several farmers who had gathered at the gram pradhan’s home. Mr. Rajbir Singh spoke with the farmers on some of the problems they were facing. He explained the benefit of Organic farming & ways of doing sustainable farming in low cost. The meeting was finally over by 6 pm and from there we started our journey back to sector Pi. The whole day was quite memorable for all the students of Indus World School of Business (IWSB)as it gave a lot of insight on problems faced by the rural poor.

We visited 4 villages & 4 schools, where we touched upon 1500 students & 2000 farmers, villagers life.

We got several sponsors for this event. NIF,SRISTI, Honeybee Network provided us several posters, herbal products of innovators, booklets on best practices, magazines, pamphlets e.t.c.(a total in-kind support of around Rs.25,000). Vaidya Family from Pune has supported us with Rs.10,000.Millennium Girls & Boys Hostel provided us Lunch & Logistical support (a total in-kind support of around Rs.10,000).