Soil-less Garden...

On saturday, Parul and I set off. It was a long weekend and we wanted to do something and go and visit some place, or go and talk to someone. After looking for some alternatives and not being able to decide on anything, in morning we decided that we are going to go and take a look at "hydroponics" garden that has been recently setup.



So "Hydroponics" is soil less cultivation. Under this system you grow plants, in small plastic containers or wooden frames, and use water and nutrients and NO soil. These apparently are very easy to cultivate, and since they don’t require soil, you could put this tubs on your terrace, balcony and everywhere. Since it is more controlled environment they don’t need pesticides and give better yields (as claimed) and many people think this could be solution to world hunger.

Wooden frames made to cultivate vegetables.

(Note the above picture is from pet bharo website, not from the school we visited)

We had got to know about hydroponics through one story on NGOPost, which was about "Pet Bharo" initiative, run by Indian institute of simplified hydroponics in Bangalore. So when we called them Saturday morning they asked us to visit this school, Sandra Rickett public school on Hennur road, which hae successfully implemented this technique and they were using the vegetables grown from there for the school consumption.



And when we reached there the garden did look very impressive. There were plants and plants every where, in plastic tubs, small plastic buckets, wooden frames and everywhere except in soil. Tomatoes, brinjals, cauliflower, chillies, Bhindis and everything. Tomatoes were specially thriving, with so many of them. The lady was running the school said that she did this training course on hydroponics. So in simplified terms, the way it works is that, you put some fiber (coconut outer) along with Perlite (which you get in market, and is kind of volcanic rock), and then you grow plants in them. Use the same seeds that are used for soil. You use nutrient (which again you get in market) dissolved water to water these plants. And then plants would grow.

Tomatoes and tomatoes thriving in these small wooden frames.

(The above picture is from school we visited, did not have camera and it is from my Nokia Phone)

It all looked good, but to me it kind of gave me a feeling of concentration camp for plants. Just like chicken farm, here there were plants and plants all put it small space, they had even put some plastic bags hanging from the wall, in which they had this perlite and fiber and plants coming out of it. Did not give such comfortable feeling, and kind of felt sorry for the plants.

Also I was wondering if there are any health hazards of consuming such vegetables. So then went to google, but then did not find any people who were complaining about the health hazards. People believe that these vegetables are much better than the ones grown with pesticides. There were one or two articles which said, that there was some concern about the long term effects on immunity system, as plants growing in soil, do absorb some fungi and other nutrients which do increase our immune system, but still no detail study reports that I could locate as of now for any issues related to health.

Probably over the coming days, would try to figure out if are there any regulations from Indian government for the same.

As of now I will try to do this course when this happens in Bangalore next, May they had said, and then at least would start of growing flowers and small vegetables on my terrace.

Have a great week ahead.. :)

Related write ups..
Pet Bharo on NGOPost. Solving poverty and Hunger in India.

You may also like to read.
Changing the mindset.
Cola Life: Using coca cola distribution network to distribute medicines.

Kili Kili time..

KiliKili means laughter in Kannada, but this KiliKili time is for one small little NGO called KiliKili. 

KiliKili works for  making parks accessible for children who are physically challenged.  I had heard about them from a long time, but then some time back I just went to one of their events at Coles Park in frazer town. With the help of BBMP, they have installed play equipment which is friendly to kids who are physically challenged.  Below are some of the pictures from that event. 

Also wrote one article about them in Citizen Matters, which you can read it here. Also my first article for citizen matters :D

Be a Writer@NGOPost

Are you tired with the current state of media reporting? Do you want to share stories about social change on a global platform?


NGOpost is a web based community for sharing news and ideas about various social welfare initiatives. In loose terms you can refer to it as "orkut" for people who are interested in making a difference.

NGOpost is actively seeking writers, who are keen on creating something which would have far reaching benefits.

Some simple questions answered.


Do I need to have writing experience?
Not necessary. As long as you know English and can form meaningful sentences it should fine.

What do I have to write on?
Write about the social change you see happening around you. Or write about the change that is needed. It could be interviewing someone who is silently doing great work, and whose work would be an inspiration for others, or it could be an organization doing great job in its respective field. There could also be generic articles like Open education tools available for schools or benefits of organ donation. Otherwise we have list of unending topics which we want people to write on, you can choose from them.

What is the benefit for me in writing for NGOPost?

* NGOpost has readership in 150 countries around the world and it has been increasing. Your article will reach hundreds of people every day!
* Each month we send out our newsletter, which goes to about ~5k people. Your name will featured there along with the link to your profile. Personally if you are a blogger, that would give your blog a lot of visibility.
* More than all this it is the satisfaction of writing about something, which would be of use to hundreds of people. We keep getting feedback how reading some articles on NGOpost helped them solve their own problems and helped them connect with relevant people.
* Going ahead we are working on the partnering with print magazines/newspapers wherein selected articles from NGOpost will get published there. Hence there is a possibility that your article might go in print :).

So Join the band wagon of people who are keen to make a positive difference. If you are interested or have further queries write to us at parul at ngopost.org or goli at ngopost.org. Or drop in a comment below.

AIDS awareness rally up to Big Banyan Tree

Sunday morning, instead of lazying around, Mayank literally dragged me in to joining this cycle rally all the way up to The Big Banyan tree organized by Jagruthi. I anyways wanted to go there once, having heard about it so much.

This place was about 25kms from ISCKON. The route was pretty simple, go on chord road all the way till the end where it meets Magadi road, Then go on Magadi road, towards magadi. On that road after about 13kms there is diversion to the left. There is no signboard there, but then most people know about the place, so I guess you would not have trouble locating the which left. The diversion to the left, is a very small beautiful nice lane kind of road.

The place, itself was not that great. There is a park kind of stuff, and inside the park there is this banyan tree. Apparently the original big tree has died and fallen down, and right now there are 5-6, big banyan trees which apparently were the part of the big tree earlier.

For me the fun part of this trip was going on the cycle. Overall it was 50kms, I have never done 50km cycle before on one day. But it was little taxing, especially because the roads were up and down. But forget the tiredness and everything else, the worst thing about this cycles is that your bum pains a lot, so if you ever plan to cycle, get a good cushion seat.

We all were supposed to carry the placard, when we cycle. And it was fun, to see people reading the banner and smiling. My placard was related to safe sex and prevention of AIDS, and most people would read it and giggle. It was fun. There were couple of people who stopped me, to ask me about Jagruthi and that was good to see. But most funny thing was this guy stopping me and asking me if I was distributing free condoms !!

Below is one of the pic which I took with some of the kids who were really fascinated with the cycle. The second pic has the placard that I was carrying all along the way on my cycle.






PS1: Jagruthi is a NGO which works for AIDS awareness. In their Bangalore home they house about 80 children, some of them HIV+, some who have been sexually abused, etc. Jagruthi tries to educate this kids, and also provide them some vocational training.

PS2: Apparently according to the survey of 2007 by National AIDS control Organization there are about 2.5M people living with AIDS in India, which is about 0.36% of total population. Karnataka accounts for about 11.2% of the AIDS cases in India, which is third in list after Maharashtra and Andra Pradesh. It is also very interesting to note that, Mahashtra, AP, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu account for about 60% of the AIDS cases. I was surprised at this stats, because I thought that AIDS was more prevalent in North India, but apparently this does not seem to be true.

PS3: Some of the pictures of Big Banyan Tree place,

One of the trees

All the tree trunks have all kind of graffiti

Another view of the same tree.

Making teaching simpler

"Suppose for each 2 idlis (form of Indian bread) that you eat you will get one chocolate, so how many idlis you will have to eat to get five chocolates" asks Uddhav Sir.
Immediately I see kids counting on fingers, and most of them come up with the correct answer 10.

Now the problem is tweaked in many ways, for three choclates how many idlis? and so on, and they start enjoying it.

then finally, at the end of class, almost as after thought, Uddhav sir introduces the notation :
He also introduces the word Ratio.
"

The above was one of the Maths class that I attended in the school called Ananya. This is the school for the street children and I have mentioned it lot of times in my blog. It is not a formal school. All students are divided in to groups, based on their capability, and they just learn. There is no fixed curriculum, when students are perceived as eligible they give the exam through NIOS.

"For teaching multiplication we had done this project, wherein I asked student to measure the distance between our school gate to the shop that is outside from where they get chocolates. They had to measure the distance and paint the sign board on the shop for our school. So they counted the distance in the unit of their footsteps, then they measured their foot steps. And with little help they automatically figured out multiplication. Got a card board, and nicely painted it, with the number." says Shashi Aunty, who runs this full place, "This small project turned a normally boring multiplication class in to something very interesting which involved drawing, painting, and most importantly understanding what is multiplication"

When you think about it there are so many simple ways to teach everyday things to kids. Little more time consuming, but these techniques are more effective in sustaining the interest of students in subject and they appreciate the concept better.

"Most of the conventional schools don't do this kind of education because they don't have time, since they have to finish the curriculum . Here in Ananya there is no curriculum. It is full of fun and project based." adds Uddhav Sir.

On similar lines, long time back I had read this wonderful article called Lockhart's Lament. This article is more related to Maths and here the author laments against the boring form of classroom teaching. There is a very simple example in his essay related to how to calculate aread of triangle, which I really liked. I will quote from there


To calculate area first imagine a triangle inside a rectangular box:


I wonder how much of the box does the triangle takes up? Two-thirds maybe?
I do see something simple and pretty:


If I chop the rectangle into two pieces like this, I can see that each piece is cut diagonally in
half by the sides of the triangle. So there is just as much space inside the triangle as outside.
That means that the triangle must take up exactly half the box!
Hence the area is that of half the rectangle.


That makes it so simple right, area of triangle is equal to half of base and height. It is such an interesting way to teach rather than to mug the formula. The school in which I studied in never taught like this, it was always learning formulas.

The above ideas look so simple, but I am not sure how many schools adopt this. At least the school I studied never taught like this. Though the above ideas look simple, I guess it is difficult to come up with such ideas. Simple in expensive ideas that can teach science, maths etc. I also wonder if there is any resource available on web which have accumulation of such tricks/methods to teach. I have not been very successful at this search, all I have landed upon are some kits for science experiments which are way to expensive to be adopted by most of this NGO schools.

Actually Uddhav Sir, has asked me if I could come up with some ideas specially related to Maths. He has also given me some NIOS textbooks which are equivalent to conventional third and forth grade. But so far I am blank. Let me try and see what I can come up with. Ideas are welcome say for example, to teach division??


Related Articles,
About NIOS : Cant attend regular School, Try Open School
Another blogpost on Ananya: Different Perspective

Different prespective

"Before I joined Ananya in 1998, I was just wasting my time. I was in a children's remand home in Bombay, and then in a hostel in Hubli. I ran away and got into smoking and drugs, until one of my friends introduced me to this school. I started studying here. I have stayed here for eight years, I have given my 10th class exam, and now I am working in CAPS IT solutions. I work as an office administrator. I want to thank Ananya, and all the teachers, because whatever I am today is due to them. I want to encourage my other friends who are in Ananya to study", he says

"Dont you want to study more?" I ask him

"No, now I want to work for some more time, I want to get my younger sister married, after that I will study more, I want to learn software uncle, (he calls me uncle, even though I dont like being called uncle)"

"Do you not want to get married?"


"No uncle, I read in paper daily, husband wife fighting, so
I dont want to get married, first I want to study"

This was my excerpt of talking with one of the Ananya students on one of my visits there, I wanted to post this for a long time but never managed to do it.


PS: Ananya is a school for the underprivileged children in Bangalore. It is one of the most wonderful NGO schools that I have seen.

Anandashram....Old Age home

Ever since Tejas (my old company ) moved to Bannergatta road, everyday while passing by that road, I used to see this board "Anand Aashram, Old age Home". This was like Aug 2005. And since then I had always wanted to go inside it once. But as idiotic as I am, who wants to do 100 things in life and hardly manages to do four or five of them, I could never make it there.

Until but yesterday one friend of mine, showed similar interest and immediately off we went, yesterday evening after office. Actually you are supposed to take permissions to visit there, but when we reached at round about 6 the office had already closed, so we just walked in to the gate and there were couple of old man sitting there and yups minutes later we were talking to them, about weather, about our natives, about Bangalore city changing, and so on.

Later on one of the guy, took us to his quarters. His wife was watching TV. The quarter was just one single room about 10x10 feet, with attached bathroom. He said that he paid about 1.2 lakhs for that (it seems they have to pay to construct the room, which remains theirs till they are alive and then goes to aashram), and he was paying about 3k per month (for both of them) for other facilities (like food and water and all).

He was telling us about his job, he was a retired railway employee and had a pension, so in a way he was like self dependent. He had two kids, son in mysore and a daughter in Bangalore. He said that he spent most of the time doing, actually doing nothing.

The place was very nice, and green and silent. But there was this feeling of abandonment there, feeling of being cut out from the world, which was very sad. This is bang on Bannergatta road but I wonder how many people walk into those gates.

Listening to him, I kept wondering how it would be to live without a aim or aspirations, when sunday is just like monday and everyday is just like any other day, when I think about myself, I always have this small things in life which i keep looking forward to, like am going to bombay next week (for some customer meet) and there is this film that I have to make as a part of Film making course at CFD.

You might get the feeling that I am talking like a Buddha, a spoiled brat who goes out for the first time goes out to see the sufferings. Not it is not like that. These people are living very comfortably, good food, resonably decent medical facitlity, good atmosphere, but I guess it is a quite a different thing to be lonely, and the feeling that you cant do much about it.

Ok coming back, we spent about an hour there, talking to couple of people, could not talk with others because most of them knew only kanada, (and I was ashamed to admit that I have not learnt a word of kannada even after close to five years in Bangalore)

I came out feeling little weird. Wondering if I could do something about it. They had everything there, carrom, library, chess etc. But somehow they had lost enthu to do anything. They just want do nothing. I dont think I can blame them, because I guess sometimes circumtances, the feeling of hurt, the feeling of being left out, might just kill your spirit, and it would take a lot to rekindle that.