We are delighted to share a blog written by student Nuha, from Our Own English High School (girls), who is part of team Wenergy delivering a Global Goals project for the 2020-21 GSL Global Goals Competition.
Their project is among over 957 social action projects currently running as part of the GSL movement and we are excited to be supporting them to design and lead positive social change in their community.
Participating in this competition was a one-in-a-lifetime experience for us and the technical and life skills we gained throughout our whole journey is something that we will carry with us for the rest of our life.
Project Summary
As we all are aware of the fact that sewers constitute a large amount of waste materials, germs, and toxic chemicals which can cause health problems such as hepatitis, cholera, and typhoid in the place where sewage is dumped. It can also contaminate water sources that are used for drinking, bathing etc. These sewers can also cause foul smells and release harmful sewer gas because of the breakdown of waste materials which can cause health problems or even death. In order to reduce and prevent these issues, we at ‘Wenergy’ came up with an idea of building a machine which would clean the sewers using robotic technology. Keeping in mind the current COVID-19 situation, we decided to build a 3D model proposing our idea instead, which would be of help in the future. The machine would run on solar energy, thus saving electricity in the process. One of the main functions of our machine is to clean the waste materials from the sewers and further segregate them into two compartments, bio-degradable and non-bio degradable.
Our project focuses on 6 main SDGs, they are listed below:
• GOOD HEALTH AND WELL BEING
• CLEAN WATER AND SANITISATION
• AFFORDABLE AND CLEAN ENERGY
• INDUSTRY, INNOVATIONS AND INFRASTRUCTURE
• SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIES
• CLIMATE ACTION
Our target was to also alleviate the sufferings of the people cleaning these sewages. Theses people have to do these jobs with meagre pay and a high probability of chronic diseases. Thereby our team carefully planned over time and took necessary actions to reach our required target. We are sure that if our idea is implemented, the world will be much cleaner and hygienic.
The Journey
Our journey to bring a change in this world started, just a few months ago. When we started, we knew nothing about the problems of the world or the difficult situations people go through to make a living. But now we have increased our knowledge on this topic, so we can help people as much as we can. We have also received a lot of support from our family, friends, teachers etc. who encourage us to keep going on for this good cause. We have also succeeded a lot in spreading awareness about our idea to make a change. Through the help of stories and posts we have spread awareness to our audience about the problems people face just so they can have food on the table. on school level, we created videos and collages about plastic pollution, sewage gases and how if we come together, we can make an impact on the lives of people who struggle every day. We even attended webinars on ocean toxicity, to increase our knowledge on our topic of focus. Even though our journey started just few months ago, we are going stronger than ever, to help bring a change.
The Next Chapter
We are successfully done with our project. We have also spread awareness about the diseases, pollution and many other problems caused by the sewers to the present humanity through various social media platforms and the results we got were outstanding and unprecedented. We would definitely recommend people especially youngsters with fresh ideas and minds to get involved in similar projects. One of the main recommendations from us to them would be to take part as much as possible in promoting and spreading awareness about climate actions and cleaning the sewers which would benefit the world infrastructurally , health wise and environmentally. Currently 93percent of sewage finds its way to ponds, lakes and rivers without treatment. On a school level, we spread awareness about this issue through creating videos on plastic pollution and showed them in our class. We will continue this activity and would definitely suggest the freshers to do the same.
