Central American Students trail blaze in Bihar!

Patna. 23 March: Four students of Agriculture and Environment from Zamorano University Honduras have been pioneering a trail on a campaign to conserve electricity in Bihar. Ms Yanira Pech from Belize (L) Nivaro Cerceno from Panama, Alberto Quintana from Mexico and Luis Huezo from El Salvador joined Tarumitra in the first week of January 2011. Guided by their perceptive and understanding guide, Professor Martha Calix, the four arrived with a plan to do internship at the Tarumitra Bioreserve in Patna for the ensuing four months. After some bouts of brainstorming it was suggested to organize a pioneering campaign on the conservation of electricity. Alberto, Yanira, Luis and Nivardo Working with the staff guide from Tarumitra Ms Margaret Molomoo, the four worked as a well knit team to reach out to nearly 30 high schools and colleges in Bihar. “Over the months we probably talked to over 5000 students on the need to conserve every wattage of electricity.” Said Ms Yanira Pech. “Students easily could catch up with Shweta since she belonged to their peer group” said Nivardo. Shweta started her campaign stating that the use of electricity alone contributed the major chunk of pollution in the modern times. The Four helping out with the Geo-thermally cooled hut “We repeated what Shweta discovered that one unit of electricity in India was produced by burning 52 kilograms of coal” said Alberto with his ever friendly smile. The Four urged the students not only to replace bulbs with CFL lamps, but also develop the habit of putting off electric appliances like lights, fans, heaters etc as and when possible. Many responded positively to the visiting students from Honduras by promising to comply. Being an innovative group, the four planned to build a Smokeless oven at Tarumitra. They followed a model developed at their university to every detail while implementing its construction using bricks and clay next to the Solar cookers. “I was amazed at the effectiveness of the oven. Absolutely no smoke even when we cooked three pots simultaneously!” said the green architect Fr. Joe Parekattil S.J. Team of Yanira, Nivardo, Alberto, and Luis along with Staff guide Margaret Molomoo Luis Sanchez commented that he enjoyed working on the construction of a hut along with Fr. Joe using geo-thermal energy to cool the interiors. “We found it was fun to carry bricks, soil and sand for the construction” said Luis. Luis carrying soil for the geo-thermally cooled house The group is shortly on their way to Bangalore for a week of assemblages in different institutions. Co-ordinated by Dr. Meath Conlan of Holy Cross run Maitreya, Bangalore, they will be teaming up with students of St. Joseph’s College in their campaigns on electricity. The four with Anshal who joined them to visit schools and translated from Englishto Hindi : Students from each school promised to save electricity in their homes! Priya from Adarsh Vidyalaya said that she would remember the visit of their “Cousins” from Central America, “ I hope to visit them sometime in my life” added Priya when she was asked to comment on the visit of the Zamorano students. NOTA: Reproduccion inedita al texto original.