Solar,a group floated by nine students of Cathedral and John Connon School,spreads awareness on global warming Nine students from the Cathedral and John Connon School,Fort,are on a mission to combat global warming and save Earth. They have formed a group called Solar to create awareness about global warming and promote the usage of solar lanterns in rural areas across the state. Class X students Devika Kapadia,Anandita Parekh,Suveer Daswani,Saakshi Daswani,Karan Daftary,Karan Khurana,Arjun Kochhar,Latisha Shah and Leesha Shah watched An Inconvenient Truth,a documentary on Al Gores campaign to make the issue of global warming a recognised problem worldwide. Inspired by this documentary these urbane youngsters formed a group in 2009 when they were in Class VIII. Initially they called themselves as GWP (Global Warming Prevention) group,but later changed their name to Solar (Save Our Land And Rise). They started off by conducting awareness programmes in their school from screening movies and documentaries based on global warming and climate crisis. They also made presentations on the issue for the fellow students. One of the members of the group Suveer Daswani said, We wanted to create awareness and do something to prevent global warming. At the same time we wanted to come up with eco-friendly solutions to address the problems faced in rural areas and help poor villagers. So we decided to begin by distributing solar lanterns in villages located on the outskirts of Mumbai and which had no electricity. During the implementation of the project these kids covered villages like Kanderwan,Ranjanpada,Penand,Chowkipada,Umberpada,Kandolpada near Vaitarna Lake. Today we are happy to see villagers replacing their kerosene lamps which posed health hazards. They are using solar lanterns. Another member of the group Devika Kapadia said,The Panchayat head of Ghagurli village in Murbad district has requested for 60 solar lanterns for their village. Due to the erratic electric supply in the village,school children are unable to study for long hours at a stretch. We are now trying to organise donations for supplying lanterns. Not only this,but the team has even helped the villagers of Ghagurli start rain water harvesting in their village. The project was inaugurated in July 2011. It took us six months to raise funds for the rain water harvesting project. Today,almost 60 families and over 100 cattles in the village are benefited through this project said a group member Arjun Kochhar. Team Solar now want to reach out to many more villages across the state and help resolve the problem of electricity and water. The team is also creating awareness about their initiatives through social networking sites and their own website. Group member Karan Daftary said,A year ago,my close friend Suveer told me about their project of distributing solar lanterns in rural areas where there is no electricity. Saddened on learning about the hardships of these villagers,I decided to join the group to contribute in any small way I could. Too see joy in their eyes and the blessings we got from them were the most rewarding and touching experience of our lives. We would love to provide light to many more villages,we also plan to harvest rain water in many more villages.
