Story Telling: Students' increased Awareness and Motivation

“Energy: Empowering Women Uplifting Lives” (Advocacy)

Manikhel, Lalitpur

30 June, 2017

A beautiful view of Shree Buddha Bhagwan Ma Vi  School

This time the Advocacy Team,  lead organization, CRT/N and its consortium partner organization, NACEUN, selected “Shree Buddha Bhagwan Ma Vi Vidhyalaya (Higher Secondary School)” from Manikhel, South Lalitpur for its school level awareness programme. The site was arranged by NACEUN which has a strong hold in South Lalitpur. Joining the Team was Ms. Laxmi Giri (senior actor) who has been a keen member of the advocacy in the capacity of a Celebrity Icon. The Team left for Manikhel, on June 30 at 8 AM and reached there at 12 PM.

Shree Buddha Bhagawan Ma Vi School situated on the high hills provides an extremely lovely environment its students. Away from hustle and bustle of urbanization and pollution, one can enjoy fresh air, clean drinking water and open space there. This VDC with around 90% literacy rate has nearly 331 houses and is 40 km away from the Headquarter of Lalitpur. The schools gets its name “Shree Buddha Bhagawan” from the ardent Buddhist people who served in the school. About hundred thirteen students participated in the awareness programme.

The objective of conducting awareness programme is to increase the understanding of school students and teachers about green energy (Renewable, sustainable and clean energy), gender and impacts of the traditional practices in energy consumptions and recognizing the role of education systems and school community in disseminating knowledge and information. With these contemplation the Advocacy Project-“Energy: Empowering Women, Uplifting Lives” has been considering schools as potential avenues to reach out to the community. The programme will also create responsibility among students towards the current energy crisis and inspire them to contribute in their little way to spread awareness on the use of alternative sources of energy within their homes and their community.

On reaching Shree Buddha Bhagwan Ma Vi Vidhyalaya, we first met with the Principal of school, Mr Dilip Kumar Syantam, an ex-student of the same school and who was already informed about the objective of our visit. Mr Syantam welcomed us at school and made all supportive arrangements for our program. 

With help from the school staff our program commenced at 1 PM. The programme was facilitated by Mr Rajendra Ghimire, NACEUN. Mr Ghimire briefly highlighted about the programme while Dr Indira Shakya shared the objective of the awareness programme. Mr Mohan Pandey, from NACEUN talked about various sources of energy, difference between RE and non- RE, uses of energy, importance of energy for the development, importance/ need of environment friendly energy, about green house effects/ climate change, about bio- fuels and also about energy crisis, ICS/ hydropower, water-mill etc. Mr Dilli Ghimire also from NECEUN highlighted about the roles of youth in efficient and productive uses of renewable energy sources and technologies, opportunities in renewal energy, clean energy and utilization of local resources. Mr Dilli also shared about the financial and technical support available for   clean energy from the Government. Similarly, Dr Indira Shakya, CRT/N highlighted mainly on gender and energy, how energy crisis affects women and etc. Using various posters and flex the information was imparted to make the students understand clearly and enjoy the topic. Videos developed by the advocacy project were also displayed for more understanding of the issue. Mr. Shyam Kumar Rai, CRT/N shared about ICS, the technology and its importance and how to get ICS for households.

The programme remained very interactive and effective. The students were very curious about the issues; they asked a lot of questions during and after the workshop. The major queries from students were:

1. ·         What is subsidy? How to access it? What is the requirement for getting subsidy?
2. ·         How employment can be created through energy?
3. ·         How can we irrigate our lands from the use of RE?
4. ·         How energy brings changes in the health and in the life of human being?
5. ·         What is ICS? How can we get it?
6. ·        Who is the technical person for ICS, how to contact with them?
7.          Can we make ICS ourselves? 

Dr Indira Shakya explaining the posters

Student participants

 The presenters (resource person) addressed the queries of students. The students seemed quite motivated after getting response of their questions.

During the workshop, Ms laxmi Giri also explained about the ICS and its importance.  Ms Giri went among the students and showed posters and explained about it. Ms Giri also acted in one of the dialogue of her movie, which all the students liked very much.

                

A girl asking her queries during programme

With the aim of getting a closer insight / opinions and enhancing the level of awareness of students on environmental issues, renewable energy and climate change and as an attempt to comprehend the effectiveness of this programme, I interacted with few students of various levels, their response indicated that awareness programme on gender and renewable energy enhances the students' perception and attitudes towards renewable energy as an alternative energy source to fossil fuels. It also enhances their level of understanding and willingness to adopt renewable and sustainable energy practices.  The majority of students agreed to share what they learned from the day’s class -importance and urgency of RE to the family, neighbors, friends and other relatives and will convince them to use clean cooking energy and other RE. Despite the easy availability many showed an interest to install ICS in their homes. It is obvious that activities such as these can make a difference for their future careers with possibilities of some students choosing to pursue a career in energy and hence contribute to reduce the gap in human resources necessary for the sector.