Who am I ?
Why did I choose India ?
I had to do
an internship in a foreign country. I wanted to find a country completly
different from France, with an other culture, an other language and
other life conditions. That’s why I chose India, the second most
populous country in the world, the 7th largest country in the world.
My arrival in India
I started my trip with the capital, New Delhi, because I arrived at New
Delhi's international airport from France. The first thing and the most difficult one
when I came out of the airport was the high summer heat. Then, the second
thing was the most surprising one : the taxi-men. About 10 taxi-men came
after me saying that the metro was broken. I stayed 3 days in Delhi
where I could visit several temples, discover the old Delhi with its
little streets, the diversity of food and the amazing traffic.
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| Street of my hotel stay |
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| Visit of the Lotus Temple in Delhi |
My arrival in the centre
My SWASH village work facility center was
located in Harike, Punjab. When I arrived, I discovered that Harike was
a little village and was completely different than New Delhi. Indeed,
the landscape is not the same, Harike is situated in the countryside and
surrounded by river wetlands on its east and south. I also discovered the house of interns and I
was pleasantly surprised because the centre was spacious and the rooms
were nice.
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| The Harike centre |
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| Harike, view from a roof |
What are my projects ?
I came as a SWASH village project manager, and the field which interested me in particular is the solid waste management.
Moreover, the main problem in Harike about the waste is the soft
plastics issue. Indeed, there are trash-pickers who pick up all the trash
(plastic bottles, glass, metal…) in the street except soft plastics.
That’s why, we can find in the street a lot of soft plastics (in
particular plastic bags).
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| Soft plastics area in Harike |
Thus, the main goal of my different projects is to reduce the use of soft plastics or to reuse them.
The first project is the creation of cushion in soft plastics.
We
implemented this project only in the intern house for the moment.
Indeed, we collect our soft plastics (plastic bags, food packages…),
then we wash them and we use them to cram the cushions (the cushions are
made by tailors).
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| Washing of the waste |
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| One cushion filled up with soft plastics |
The second project is the reusable bags project.
To reuse
soft plastics is a good idea but it would be better if we manage to stop
the use of soft plastics and in particular plastic bags. Thus, this
project is to make cloth bags to replace the plastic ones.
First, we
picked up fabric scraps for free thanks to different tailors. Then, we
found some women in the community who agreed to make bags with these
fabric scraps. In exchange, we gave english courses to women who want
it. For the ones who did not want English lessons (and made most of the
bags), no compensation was asked as they said they were happy to sew the
bags.
Thus, we
managed to create 34 bags for the moment. The challenge now is to make
sure that the community will use and reuse these bags.
Should we sell these bags ? Should we give these bags ? Should we work directly with the shopkeepers ?
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| Some of the reusable bags |
Paralelly to these projects, I try to find some creations to do with plastics and I managed to make two things :
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| Pompoms in plastic bags |
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| Bloom in plastic bottles (7 bottles) |
Holidays and weekends
Some pictures of our weekends and visits
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| Golden Temple, Amritsar |
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| The Indo-Pakistani border |
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| The wetland, Harike |
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| Taj-Mahal, Agra |
Gauthier Guerrar - France
SWASH Village Project Manager
Harike Village ViKAAS Centre
EduCARE India
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