Tessa Stuker
The project needs volunteers post August 2018 for awareness and Zero Waste school programs! The duration of the stay depends on you. I would recommend at least two months so you can see the changes and progress.
You will educate students as well as teachers about segregation and composting, organize cleanup campaigns in the campuses, locate and organize bins and lots of other things. I would love the see the project evolve!
If you are interested or have any questions, please contact us!
I stayed there for nearly a month. In case you are provided with free stay, you can easily manage under 2000 CHF for the month and around 2750 for 2 months. Ticket 650, Train 50, Taxi 30, Food 350, Stay 400 month, Local transportation for Sightseeing 350 for the month. But the experience of bringing those changes and contributing to society in large is TRULY PRICELESS.
In the month I was there we had a lot of work to do. The group had to complete a DPR (detailed project report) for waste management for Tinsukia town that took a lot of time to write. A normal day for me was going to the school and college during the day, organize awareness materials, going to printing shops a lot and in the evening preparing documents and banners to turn the school and colleges to practice zero waste. We sometimes worked till late at night but it was always fun to sit together in the group and laugh about crazy things that happened during the day.
We did some amazing little trips but I would really recommend you to stay at least two months or more so you can travel around more and see the progress actually happening. And of course there is so much to see that I missed out like river Dolphins, Rhino and Toger National Park, Tea Gardens and many good places for bird watching
Tinsukia is not a town where a lot of tourist go. It is a very busy city with a lot of shops and traffic. I’ve been stared at in the streets quite a lot. Some even asked me for a selfie. It’s something to get used to. As a tourist you get extra attention but otherwise everyone was very friendly. The fact that I was always accompanied by someone who speaks the local language made everything a lot easier. This will also be the case for you if you join the project. Many people speak English especially in the schools and colleges.
You will find the people very welcoming and curious. You will certainly be often invited for food and tea. Those have been the most memorable moments for me- from both the countryside and the town.
My main job was to go to colleges and schools to help change their habit of burning waste and indiscriminately disposing it. My primary job was to explain students and staff how to segregate the recyclable waste and compost the organic waste. The goal was to become a Zero Waste Campus. This means that 80% of the waste must be recycled and often more than 60% of the waste is organic which can easily be composted.
In the beginning I thought it would be easy, but I was wrong. We faced some difficulties that we didn’t foresee. We had inorganic waste in the compost pits, burning waste on the campus and dustbins misused. One needs to be patient and understanding as they are not used to such organized systems. But we also had some very successful moments. We had lots of volunteers coming to help us out to place the bins, we ran two clean up campaigns with over more than 300 students participating in it and banners being put up to show the importance of recycling. The look of the campus just changes in 1 day from dirty looking campus to a clean and pleasing campus.
It was a unique experience to be able to get a glimpse of the Indian schooling system and being able to talk to students, teachers and to the principal. It’s hard to get work done on time because you always get invited to drink tea and chat a bit.
This was a question that many people asked us. We are not an organization. We are five passionate volunteers who want to help and trying to make change.
And we did change 1 college campus and 1 school campus and remember that the total strength of these two are more than 4000 students and teachers. The district administration was extremely helpful particularly the Deputy Commissioner and Executive Officer who provided good stay and transportation.
Sanjay has shifted his base from Switzerland to India to do more voluntary work in waste management. He wants to turn the entire town into zero waste and target at least 20 schools to practice zero waste. Changes starts from School. He can now also provide internship certificates and letters of the voluntary work done to those who want it through a local NGO.
