Creativity
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Hong Kong food waste reduction counts on children, creativity

 


The city is counting on the younger generations in solving the problem on food waste, while being creative in promoting sustainable habits.

The Environment Bureau launched in December 2014 the pre-primary environmental education kit to raise children’s awareness of protecting resources and reducing food waste. It points out that childhood is “an important part of environmental education.”

The bureau also prompted the education sector to cultivate among children the culture of “use less, waste less,” which is the theme of the government’s food waste plan launched in February 2014.

Supported by different sectors, the Environmental Campaign Committee set up last June an internet platform called “Waste Less School” for kindergarten, primary and secondary students. It aims to promote “zero food waste” among children, extend awareness through school events and encourage the public “to change their behavior.”

In its plan, the government aims to cut the disposal rate to landfill of municipal solid waste on a per capita basis by two-fifth in 2022. It says the critical part is to reduce food waste production.

Food waste here reached 3,600 tons every day in 2011. Households produced two-thirds of it. The rest came from food-related commercial and industrial establishments.

The amount of food waste from households had increased from 786,200 tons in 2008 to 925,200 tons in 2012, according to the Environmental Protection Department.

“Apparently, it is still more effective to start the environmental education at home,” said Wise Wong, who used to teach at the York International Kindergarten. Children learn the value of conserving food from their parents first, she added.

Sandy Zeng from Hung Hom district said she occasionally takes her 4-year-old daughter to a farm to show where their food came from. The child can see the tedious processes of planting and harvesting vegetables in the farm, and learn to give importance to the food and its sources, Zeng said.

Since the Food Wise Hong Kong Campaign began in May 2013, schools have done various activities and platforms for their students to participate in reducing food waste.

Meanwhile, Wong said it is effective to use animation characters to instill the values among children, especially if the ones being used are their favorite cartoons. “It’s like having a role model in a creative and fun way,” she added.

Cartoon character “Big Waster” that symbolizes food wastage in the FWHK Campaign “is gradually gaining popularity,” according to its press release. It also went online to interact with the public, especially the young generation, through its Facebook page.

 "Big Waster" of Food Wise Hong Kong Campaign poses in a poster retrieved from its Facebook page.

However, it is yet to be surveyed how Hong Kong people respond to animation characters and mascots of environmental and other campaigns, said Ms. Wong of the industry support section of Create Hong Kong that has the mandate to boost creative industries.

CreateHK held in 2013 the first mascot design competition here for “Hong Kong: Our Home” Campaign. Its four themes each with a mascot were “Hip Hong Kong,” “Vibrant Hong Kong,” “Caring Hong Kong,” and “Fresh Hong Kong.”

Cooking hot to keep the climate cool

Cooking hot to keep the climate cool


By Lorie Ann Cascaro on October 16 2013 4:00 pm

VIENTIANE, Laos (MindaNews / 16 Oct) – Buying a new cookstove is not easy. Sellers offer heaps of different models that look alike and as a buyer, how do you know how it performs at home? Not to mention that the human brain does not like to make decisions. The problem is apparent in Dongmakind market, along Road Number 10 to Thangon. All outlets offer a wide array of models.

But, if you believe the saleswoman, Ms Sai, 35, choosing has now become easy. She sells something that the others don’t have yet – the improved tao payat (fuel-saving cookstove). A prominent, blue sticker distinguishes the stoves and a tarpaulin poster states that these stoves are “quality-tested and more efficient” than traditional stoves.

“They are better,” Ms Sai, who had sold two out of a first batch of five cookstoves a week after she began displaying them, tells Vientiane Times on a Friday afternoon. She promotes the stoves to customers, saying they are fuel-saving, long lasting, and friendly to health and the environment.

She is among Vientiane’s first five retailers of a new, improved tao payat model, which resulted from a project of SNV Netherlands Development Organisation and the local Non-Profit Association Normai. It was paid for by the European Union, Oxfam and the Blue Moon Fund.


The project started in Savannakhet in 2011, where in 2012 about 1,500 stoves already have been sold. Sales will reach 5,000 in 2013 and go up to 20,000 in 2014. Now, the first stoves are being sold in Vientiane. They are also going to be promoted at a special booth during the upcoming boat racing festival.

Mr Bastiaan Teune, Sector Leader of Renewable Energy of SNV in Laos, says the project tries to connect the private and the public sector and to improve the lives of the people as its main purpose. It focuses on making the traditional stove more efficient and durable. By replacing the old tao dam with the improved tao payat, a household can save about 20 percent of fuel, which is equal to 300 grams of charcoal per day. It also boils water faster.

This might not look like much, but quickly becomes so when scaled-up. In total, Laos can save at least 30,000 kilograms of charcoal per day with the 100,000 improved cook stoves that the project aims to produce by 2016. About 50,000 cookstoves of them will be distributed in Vientiane capital and province, 25,000 each in the provinces of Savannakhet and Champasak.

Mr Teune explains that the roughly 100kg charcoal that one new cookstove saves per year results in greenhouse gases equal of one ton of carbon dioxide (CO2). The total greenhouse gas emissions reduced by the project during the period of 2014-2016 will be 150,000 tons, he says. “This is equal to the emissions of 20,000 passengers flying from Vientiane to Amsterdam and back,” Mr Teune explains.

The reduced greenhouse gas emissions could theoretically also be sold on the international carbon market in the future. Unfortunately, they’re not worth that much nowadays. “The ‘market price’ to sell one ton used to be US$10, but is now at an all-time low at US$1 only due to the low international commitment to the Kyoto Protocol,” adds Mr Teune. The greenhouse gases saved by the improved cookstoves would have a total market value of about US$150,000.

While it is true that the use of the improved tao payat reduces carbon emissions from cooking, it does not stop suppliers of charcoal to cut trees and char wood. But wood and charcoal can be considered as renewable sources of energy only if another tree is planted after cutting one, says Mr Teune. This is beyond the scope of this particular project, and he has made steps to do so.

The producer of the first cookstoves in Vientiane is Mr Loth, 35, whose workshop lies in Oudomphone village. On the ground, hundreds of grey tao payat stoves wait to be baked in the kiln. While his employees are crafting stove after stove in the back, he says that he doesn’t expect to earn much more from supplying the new-designed stoves instead of the old ones, due to the longer durability. “But after using three of these stoves at home, I knew then that they would quickly sell out in the market”, says Mr Loth. An improved cookstove costs 10,000 kip more than a traditional cookstove but it lasts a year and a half longer, he adds.

Around the world, 1.6 billion people depend on charcoal and wood for cooking. In Laos, over 80 percent of the households still use traditional stoves for cooking, at least twice a day. Cookstoves are “detrimental to the livelihood of people,” according to Mr Teune, and their use also brings certain risks. Firewood takes time to collect, for example, and smoke creates a lot of health problems. Worldwide, about four million people die per year from smoke-induced diseases. Increasing the efficiency of the cookstoves lessens all these troubles.

Another long-term impact of the project, Mr Teune says, is the introduction of quality standards: “Let producers agree on quality standards with retailers. Consumers will distinguish a good stove from a traditional one by the blue label. The government can take part in quality assurance, using better methods to check the efficiency of stoves.”

Testing is done by the Institute of Renewable Energy and New Materials of the Ministry of Science and Technology, where staff tests the efficiency and characteristics of different models. For the first time ever a quality standard is introduced to the cookstove market in Lao PDR.

The second outlet that features the tao payat in Dongmakind market is the one of Ms Khek, 29. The new model is lined up together with old ones like the tao dam (black stove) or stoves made of cement. She points to a small wood-fired stove when asked which one sells best. Why? “It’s the cheapest and costs only 20,000 kip each. But it can only last for seven to eight months.” She notes that although the improved tao payat costs 45,000 kip, it can last up to two years. On her shelf, a quite special one, the first ever produced cookstove with the serial number 001, produced by Mr Loth, waits for his new owner.

[Lorie Ann Cascaro of MindaNews is one of the fellows of the FK Norway (Fredskorpset) exchange program in partnership with the Vietnam Forum of Environmental Journalists. She’s currently in Laos and hosted by the Vientiane Times.]



Read more http://www.mindanews.com/feature/2013/10/16/cooking-hot-to-keep-the-climate-cool/
Laos kids express hope for the future through images

Laos kids express hope for the future through images


By Lorie Ann Cascaro on September 7 2013 3:59 pm

Through drawings, photos and role play, children from different provinces met in Vientiane to express their vision for their villages by the time they reach 20.

VIENTIANE, Laos (MindaNews / 7 Sept) – Luxon Keodavonh from Donkhoun village in Khammuan province’s Xebangfay district wants to be a soldier when he grows up. He will be 20 years old in 2020.

“My two siblings and I are living with my mother in Khammuan. Our father left us for reasons I don’t know. But, when I become a soldier, I will earn a lot of money and will give it to my mother to support us,” he told Vientiane Times.

He is one of 12 children picked by World Vision Lao PDR (WVL) to join the “Hearing the hopes of children for Laos in 2020” forum in Vientiane last Tuesday.

Coming from 12 provinces, they were selected as children’s council members to tell government partners about life in their communities and what they wanted to achieve by the time they were 20.


Using crayons and coloured pencils, the children used drawing to express how they envisioned their villages in the year 2020.

“The school in my village is very old; I want it to be fixed. My village also needs a hospital to treat sick people,” Luxon said, showing his own picture to participants.

Khamphay Vilayvong, National Leading Committee for Rural Development and Poverty Eradication Foreign Relations Department senior official, attended the forum along with representatives from government and non-government organisations and agencies.

Children also presented photographs they had taken in their villages.

Twelve-year-old Chansy showed a padlocked toilet in her school in Seanmeaung village in Champassak province’s Soukhuman district.

“We cannot use it because there is no water and we cannot keep it clean,” she said.

Vongphachanh, 13 and from the same village, showed a picture of a water pump.

“It’s very difficult for us to use this,” he said. “We need a sustainable water supply.”

Lattana from Pakbok village, Ngoy district in Luang Prabang province, showed a photo of farmers in cabbage farm.

“In the past, we grew a few vegetables only for us to eat but now we are growing vegetables in a very big field to eat and sell as well,” she said.

Photos taken by Phengkham from Samyaek village in Phoukoun district, Luang Prabang province show a market in her village and farmers climbing a steep hill while carrying huge baskets of vegetables.

She said the stalls in the market didn’t have strong roofs, the place was not clean and her family needed a vehicle to transport their goods.

One photograph from Khamla, from Vangxieng village in Phonthong district, Luang Prabang province, was of two men riding a bamboo raft along a river. One man is holding on to his motorbike, while the other is maneuvering the raft.

“The villagers need to build a bridge to cross the river more easily and safely,” Khamla said.

The group dramatised scenes of two families to show how parents can violate their children’s rights by not sending them to school or by depriving their daughters of an education.

WVL National Director Amelia Merrick said she had felt discouraged hearing children’s stories last year and had realised World Vision was not working fast enough to help the children in its 24 target districts.

She said it was around then her friend Sombath Somphone, a well-regarded Lao community worker who has been reportedly missing since December, told her stories of change.

“He told me, ‘I have seen it different in Laos, Amelia’,” she said.

“Mr Sombath said our greatest hope is listening to the youth and listening to the children. He said the children in Laos are very smart and they have great ideas and want to be a part of the change in Laos.

“Today I believe that it is true because I have been inspired that it can be different.”

More than 46,000 children are enrolled in WVL’s child sponsorship programme, which is run in rural communities in five provinces – Luang Prabang, Borikhamxay, Khammuan, Savannakhet and Champassak.

Unlike Luxon’s dream of becoming a soldier, Seua, who led the group singing, wants to become a policeman.

“But, I can also be a singer,” he said, showing his teeth in a shy grin.

The small boy sang along with the other children in a song honoring soldiers who fought for the country’s freedom, while Vongphachan, 13, played a wooden beat box like a true professional. (Lorie Ann Cascaro / MindaNews with Patithin of Vientiane Times)

[Lorie Ann Cascaro of MindaNews is one of the fellows of the FK Norway (Fredskorpset) exchange program in partnership with the Vietnam Forum of Environmental Journalists. She’s currently in Laos and hosted by the Vientiane Times.]



Read more http://www.mindanews.com/around-mindanao/children/2013/09/07/laos-kids-express-hope-for-the-future-through-images/
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