We are delighted to share a blog written by Andrea Cárdenas, a student at The Columbus School who is part of a team delivering a Global Goals project for the 2019-20 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.
It has been an enriching and mind-opening experience to work in cooperation with Graviky Labs and GSL.
Project Overview
Our project is focused on improving air quality by reducing pollution at our school, primarily caused by the school’s buses. We chose this issue and decided to embark on this project because we, as students, realized this is something we desperately need to fix, as we know the repercussions are immense for our student body and for the environment as a whole. Part of our project is dedicated to raising awareness for the issue of air and other types of pollution.
Our primary goals are to prevent respiratory diseases in our community that might be present in the future if immediate actions are not taken, and to reduce our school’s pollution and carbon footprint. We also aim to support environmentally-friendly innovations, so, in the long run, they will turn into successful companies and will make a concrete change in our society as a whole.
Our Journey
The idea was born, after assessing the situation, by investigating online and finding a company, called GRAVIKY LABS that created KAALINK, a technology that purifies contaminated air produced by vehicle muffles and turns it into ink used in AirInk pens.
In order to achieve our goals, we have done some interviews with important members of our community. One of the interviewees was the High School Vice-Principal at The Columbus School, as well as the head of transportation of the entire school. They both agreed that, as long as the KAALINK doesn’t damage the vehicles, it would be a welcome and necessary change. Additionally, we have sent an email to the Graviky Labs company, communicating our wish to collaborate. We agreed to have a meeting in the future with Mr. Anirudh Sharma, the cofounder of the company, in order to discuss the product.
The Next Chapter
Our future plans are long term, We know this project isn’t easy to fulfill, especially in such as short time span. Over the next few months, we plan to continue communicating with Graviky Labs in order to come to an agreement on the product and hopefully be able to implement them in our school. Additionally, we want to come in contact with several bus companies in our city to discuss reducing their ecological footprint and potentially recieving their aid in implementing the KAALINK in other parts of Medellín.
The 2019-20 GSL Global Goals Competition is now open and runs until June 2020. If you belong to one of the 700+ teams of students currently delivering a social action project as part of the competition we would love to hear from you and feature your blog and project photos on our website to inspire others.
