HLC INTERNATIONAL Design For Change

Donate To Create A Better Society

September 2011

What was done at HLC International?

We had been a part of the Design for Change initiative for the

past 2 years. The first year we helped a school for the

underprivileged by donating books and toys. The next year we

found a lot of garbage being burnt in the dump yard behind our

school. We tried to take the matter with the concerned

authorities by initiating a signature campaign in offices, schools

and homes that were close to the garbage dump yard.

This year, we wanted to do something new, something which had

not been tackled before, something that will reach a lot of

people.

STEP 1 – FEEL THE PROBLEM

We first asked ourselves “What is it that we would like to change ?” We had an ideas box kept outside classrooms to get suggestions. With many ideas floating around, we decided that a ‘brainstorming session’ will

help us funnel down our ideas and come up with the most important ‘problem’ and an approach towards countering this problem.

The entire process was very democratic.

This is us at our brainstorming session!!

The majority was, obviously, the one we chose. We thought of a way to make the world a greener place. We brainstormed a few ways on how to eliminate the never-ending pile of plastics and how we can bring a stop to people throwing away useful things. One man’s rubbish can be another one’s treasure.

The best method was to spread the awareness of reusing and the dangers of plastic.

Too much waste!!So we decided that we will try to reduce waste by promoting reuse

STEP 2 – IMAGINE THE SOLUTION

One of the main reasons for ‘reusing’ instead of ‘recycling’ was that, ‘reusing’ is easier, quicker and cheaper. We also believe that what one person would consider as waste could be extremely useful for some other person.

Hence, as a first step towards the solution we requested the students/parents of our school to donate anything which they no longer have any use for. Thus started our ‘Donation drive’ – mind you it was not an easy task!

On the first day, we did not get many things, but we did not lose courage. We went to each class and urged our friends to collect as much as they could as it would help us make a difference to some one else’s life.

STEP 3 – SORT

Lo and Behold! In the next few days we had a ton of things arriving!!! We collected the so called “scrap” – old clothes, discarded stationery items, plastic bottles, newspapers, unused pages from old notebooks and so on.

Overall we got 241 items of clothing, 125 toys and 41 books, it was a huge success! It didn’t end there… we had to sort them out.

After the collection drive, we divided ourselves into 2 teams.

One team was in charge of sorting out things according to the place they would be donated to and the second team started making the paper bags - from the newspapers and unwanted papers collected

The next few days , we spent on segregating the collected items. This was the most time consuming process. We had a tough time sorting out because we got heaps of everything , especially clothes

After sorting the things that we had got, we decided that we would donate these things to 2 places – Anbu Karangal – an orphanage and Ananda Marga Nursery and Primary School.

While one group was sorting out all the items, the other group had started making paper bags. In doing so, we involved kids across all grades

Pre KG to 5th graders made designs on the paper using stamps, while students from 6th and above made the paper bags

STEP 3 – SORT – CREATE

Making the paper bags was something new which we were learning.

Our initial attempts had few flaws. The top portion did not have a neat finish and we realized that it needed to be folded in, to look neater. We also had to use cello tape before punching in the hole for the handle, so that the hole didn’t tear away. Some students came up with different ways of making the bags and they were proud to teach others their “own” methods!

Slowly we started getting organized and we formed an ‘assembly line’ at school, with groups of students working on each step. One group made the bags, another group put handles, another group checked for quality and the last group counted. It was quite a sight for all onlookers!

Finally, we made a total of 550 550 bags - having learnt so much in the process! To be exact we made over 600 bags. But we had to reject more than 50 of those, for quality purposes.

STEP 3 – CREATE

STEP 3 – SORT – CREATE - DONATE

STEP 3 – SORT – CREATE - DONATE

As decided, we donated old clothes to Anbu Karangal & stationery and notebooks to Ananda Marga Nursery and Primary School

We also made decorative articles from the plastic bottles. These would adorn the entrance of our classrooms and remind us of the DFC initiative!

The 550 paper bags that we made, we decided that we would give them away to various shops and shoppers in the Citi Centre Mall. We chose this mall to get maximum visibility and take the message to as many people as possible. We spent 2 full days at the mall – Saturday September 24th and Sunday September 25th to give away the bags

We also thought that we should share our knowledge of making the paper bags with all the people at the mall. It was truly an unforgettable experience as people across various age groups came to us and learnt how to make these paper bags!

Some people were impressed with our initiative and were really eager to learn how to make the bags, some people just didn’t care and some people liked our initiative but didn’t want the bags! We gave the bags to different shops like Lifestyle, Van Heusen, Reynolds and Estelle. Some shops said they were using paper bags but in practice they were not!

STEP 4 - SHARE

STEP 4 - SHARE

There were two people from Orissa and a person from Sri Villiputhur who liked the idea so much that they wanted to implement it in their native place! The people from Orissa asked us – “One bag free, 1000 bags how much?”!

This just showed that with one idea, we had an impact that was not just restricted to Chennai – but travelled to other states as well!

We also visited PSBB Millennium school and Gateway school to share our experience and explain what we did.

The Gateway school got inspired and followed in our footsteps by organising a collection drive in their school. They will be donating all the collected items to the under privileged.

STEP 4 - SHARE

We also showed this PowerPoint Presentation to Mr.Bhavanishankar, Senior Principal - Omega International School, Mrs.Poonam , Principal - Omega International School, Mr. John Abraham, Principal - Crescent International School and Mr. Vinayak – Regional Manager, CIE.

Our journey doesn’t end here. Later this month, we will be going to KFI School to talk to them about this initiative. We hope they will take up some initiative like this and spread the message.

BE THE CHANGE YOU WISH TO SEE IN THE WORLD - Mahatma Gandhi

Thank You