Journalism of Courage
Addressing an audience of 145 people is no joke. More so,when there are corporate heads,representatives of leading design schools,entrepreneurs,design professionals and students from across the country. Despite coming from a rural background and being able to communicate only in Marathi,two students,Swapnil Lohar and Kuldeep Pawar,confidently presented their project. It was the first time that I spoke in front of so many people. We were nervous initially but the audience was extremely encouraging and patient, said Swapnil,one of the students from Rajendra Mahavidyalaya,Khandala,who attended USID 2011 (Universal,Sustainable,Innovative Design for Social Change) held at Auroville,Tamil Nadu.
An innovative project – addressing the hygiene problems faced by poultry owners – designed by Swapnil,Kuldeep and three other Std XI students,Manoj Nanaware,Komal Dhaigude and Rohit Kanchan,of Rajendra Mahavidyalaya gave them the opportunity to attend USID. This conference had presentations of projects by prestigious institutes like IIT Kanpur,IIT Mumbai,MIT Institute of Design,Symbiosis Institute of Design and the like. In its fifth year,the conference,for the first time,gave school students the chance to display their innovation.
The poultry project designed by these students was part of a week-long Rural Design Education Workshop attended by 20 students who were divided into four teams. Each team had to select a problem and come up with a solution. The students who presented their design at USID took up the issue of the unhygienic setting of poultry farms and the stench caused due to the infrequent cleaning cycle that coincides with new batches of birds. Generally a poultry is cleaned after 55 days. Cleaning a poultry farm is desirable yet very difficult because chicks are of a delicate disposition and are adversely affected by movement. Poultry farms have attracted zoning regulations as a result and many have shut down as residential areas came up in the vicinity, said Jhumkee Iyengar who conducted the workshop. The students made field visits,interacted with poultry owners,understood the problem,conceptualised the design,got it evaluated and validated from the poultry owners and presented it on the sixth day of the workshop.
The device works with a simple mechanism. In a normal poultry shed,the base,which is normally 0.5 ft high,rests on the ground. We have increased the height of the base to 1.5 – 2 ft. This extra space is used to put in plastic plates that act as a base. The difference is that these plates are removable,foldable and washable, explains Swapnil. The chicks sit on the netted sheet; the waste settles on the plates below that can be washed everyday too. Instead of making one piece of bulky plate which will occupy more space and require more than one person to operate,the students divided the plates into four parts thus making them lighter and easier to handle.
They are not even familiar with the terms for the tools and technology but they have the knowledge of applying real-life techniques in the right manner. They just need a little guidance, said Ajay Kale,a student of MIT Institute of Design who mentored the team.
