‘ Bags of Paper-Better off Pune’

Our Story of ChangeLt. Smt. Shantabai Ladkat English Medium School,

Pune

Step 1: FEEL

We live in a community in Pune where the use of plastic bags is rampant despite a state-wide ban on them. We have learnt how harmful plastic is to the environment. This problem bothered us a lot.

Learning More

Our teacher also showed us a documentary on the damage that plastic does.

We learned a lot more about the harmful effects of plastic around us.

Step 2: IMAGINE

We discussed ideas with our teacher and came up with the following:

A street play/skit to generate awareness.

Learning how to make paper bags.

Giving the paper bags to the shopkeepers in our community.

OUR CATCHPHRASE

BAGS OF PAPER – BETTER OFF PUNE!

Why Paper Bags?

We wanted to provide people with an alternative to plastic while telling them how using plastic harms the environment.

We decided to learn how to make paper bags so that we could give them to the shopkeepers in our community who were still using plastic.

STEP 1: Learn how to make paper bags

STEP 3: SPREADTeach women in our community (self-help groups) how to make

paper bags and facilitate paper bag sales for them by providing free

paper bag as samples to shopkeepers.

STEP 3: ADVOCATE1. Prepare enough sample bags to give to the shopkeepers in our community as samples.2. Stage a skit to generate awareness.3. Teaching other school children how to make paper bags as well.

STEP 4: Convince shopkeepers to stop giving plastic bags and start using

paper bags

STEP 2: Make paper bags

Step 3: DO

We learnt how to make paper bags from our teacher

Making paper bags

We got help from Rotary club in Pune, who donated us extra newspapers to help make our bags.

We prepared different kinds of bags according to differing shopkeepers’ needs.

Advocating

We invited parents and teachers and staged a skit about the dangers of using plastic bags.

AdvocatingWe went around

our community with the paper bags we had prepared.

For every paper bag we gave, we took 5 plastic bags from the shopkeepers.

IMPACT: 500 paper bags given. 2500 Plastic bags collected.

SpreadingWe also spread

this around our community by teaching women how to make paper bags, so that they could sell them and earn money.

IMPACT: 500 paper bags given. 2500 Plastic bags collected.

How we were ‘Changed’

We learnt the importance of teamwork and were grateful for the support we got from so many places.

Most importantly, we learnt that there is a solution to all problems and we have the power to influence things