Bremen Trip Presentation

Presentation about the Trip

Tasneem's Trip

In our conference room we had 9 teams, I and Ankitha had done the presentation on CDs and DVDs.

One team did their presentation on the wastes collected during festivals like Diwali, Pongal etc.

A team from Coimbatore had done their presentation on basic education in a village. They were helping to people of the village to throw the waste in the dustbin and to learn the names of vegetables in English.

One German pair had done their presentation about the need for two dustbins in a classroom. They had only 1 dustbin in a classroom. They had only one dustbin per class to throw all the waste, they wanted two dustbins, one for plastic waste and the other for organic waste.

They was one group from Delhi they were working on their project for the past two years, they were helping a small village, Sajjapur, in Delhi, where people dumped waste in large amounts. The people of the village were not aware about the dangers that they face from the garbage that was dumped.

Another group from Delhi has done their presentation about ‘waste water management’.

Summary of Discussions in The Bremen Conference

We met for two hours in our group and had discussions. The team from Pune explained about the waste produced during festivals like diwali, ganesh chathurthi and how they can be recycled. Another team from Bangalore explained about the people in villages who are uneducated.

The team from Germany, from the school Rukenkamp explained about keeping our surroundings clean, we had a team from Delhi,  who were working on a project which was about a village near Delhi. The students from that team worked on that village to clean it, for the past 3 years.

 Another team from Delhi cleaned a pond and took out all the waste and algae and made paper with them. The next day, we were split into groups again to form the final declaration. In our group we were speaking about daily resources. We formed more groups to discuss some individual things in greater detail. For example, one group was formed to discuss, how to save water or water management.

Ideas like, closing the tap when not in use, recycling of toilet water and using them for the garden. Group 2, who were speaking about transportation, gave an idea like usage of public transport. Group 3 were given the topic electricity, the students came up with ideas like, switching off the fans and lights when not in use.

 The other groups had similar discussions on different topics. They were: Keeping the surroundings clean, Natural resources in daily life and Disposal of waste. All the ideas from the other groups were put together to form the final declaration. The sum and substance of the final declaration is as follows: Keeping the roads clean, Usage of rainwater harvesting systems in every house, Solar panels which will reduce the usage of electricity, the usage of water recycling. Most of the houses were using solar panels and there were many windmill fields by which they reduced the usage of hydroelectric power and also reducing the emission of CFCs.

German Trip

On the seminar day we were split into 4 groups and students with similar topics were also separated. My partner Tasneem and myself were the last to go and talk about CDs and their harmful effects. They asked us questions like "Do you think that people still use CDs?". We said that everyone may not be using CDs, but according to our research 25% of CDs are being manufactured. Even 25% makes a huge difference because they can be really harmful to us. They asked us whether there are any alternatives to recycle the CDs. They were quite astonished , when we said that the polycarbonate used in the CD can be pulverised and be used to lay roads. We got a feedback that we have not gone deep into the subject. They gave us ideas to improve our work. The 'Greening with Goethe' seminar has helped us to improve our project for the exchange programme. We not only got ideas from the Judges, but also from other students who had done projects on E-waste.

The poster which was presented during the competition.

For more details visit the below site:
http://www.goethe.de/ins/in/lp/prj/gwg/new/enindex.htm

Ankitha's Trip

Bremen Trip

Day 1 (27/11/13)

We reached Frankfurt and it was snowing. Then, we waited in the airport to board our flight to Bremen.

When we reached Bremen, we met Andrea Shifer and Roshan, who were the organizers. We then left for the hostel, where we were given our room keys. There were 6 of us in the room. We then took rest, had our dinner and slept.

Day 2 (28/11/13)

We went on a bus tour, visited Bremen University, and walked around. Then we did an experiment on solar cells. Then we went to a vocational school, Rubenkamp. There, we saw different types of classes like meat production class and theater class. We had our lunch at the school's Hotel Managment class. We then went back to the hostel, and left to the Christmas market in the evening. The streets were crowded. We went to the Euro shop, did some shopping and went back.

Day 3 (29/11/13)

We had an intercultural program, where we learnt about German culture and played a small game.  I was called for an interview, where I had to explain my project.  We went to a cafe in the University and had our lunch.  Then, we left back to the hostel for the guided tour. Then, we were separated into groups and went back to the Christmas market.

Day 4 (30/11/13)

It was the conference day and we displayed our poster to the judges. Then, we went into the conference room, where we finished our project and discussion successfully. We then went back to the hostel and took rest.

Day 5 (1/12/13)

We had a workshop with different groups and topics.  My partner and I were in 'Sustainability in Everyday Life'.  Once it was over, we worked together to make a final declaration, which we signed.  Then, our conference was over. We went back to the Christmas market and shopped some more.  Then, we went back to the hostel, where we packed our bags to leave the next day.

Day 6 (2/12/13)

We got up early, got ready, and started our journey back to India. The best part of the conference was making new friends from different parts of India and Germany.