On the 16th and 17th of this month, we the students of CMR National PU College
had the privilege of taking part in the inter-school fest Volksfiesta organized and
hosted by Deens academy, Gunjur. As soon as we received information about the
fest multiple names came in, enthusiastic and eager to participate. As I was going
through the list of events, I came upon one particular event that struck my
interest. It was called ‘Quality Circle’. It was a team event that required us to take
up an issue in our locality, come up with solutions to the issue and ways to
implement them. We then had to present on the day of the fest with a
PowerPoint presentation. Intrigued by the whole concept, I came to the conclusion
that the experience would be a valuable one. After deciding to participate, came
the time to make a team. I realized the team had to consist of people who I knew
well enough and who found the event just as interesting as I did. Thus, I
approached my friends Shwetha, Ramya, Gopika and Meghna who agreed to take
up this endeavour with me. The first step of our long process was to choose our
issue.
There isn’t a lack of problems around us in today’s day and age but it was
important to us that we pick a topic that was relevant and left a long-term impact.
After what seemed to be hours of brainstorming, we couldn’t come to a
conclusion. As we were leaving to go back home, we stopped near a juice shop
that was serving juice with plastic straws. There we saw this one woman who
unlike everyone else there, took a steel straw from her bag and used that instead
of the plastic straws. Nearby to the shop, we saw a dustbin filled with plastic straws
and cups. We had finally found our topic- ‘Plastic as a crutch for affordable
business’.
The next step was finding solutions and implementing them. We started by
finding possible substitutes to plastic that were practical and not overly expensive
for the common shop owners. We were also successful in contacting the senior
health inspector Mr. Devaraj and ward health inspector Mr. Raghu of the
Mahadevapura ward, with assistance from a local resident Ms. Rekha, who gave
us their thoughts and ideas. Then, we went around asking local shop owners their
take on plastic in today’s world and introducing to them alternatives to plastic-like
paper straws, steel straws, paper bags and more. Most of them seemed willing to
do the small part they could.
The day to present finally came. We had our presentation ready and the nerves
started to kick in. A lot of hard work and dedication was put into our
presentation. We went up to speak and did our best to convey our message. The
other participant teams put up a strong competition. When the results were
finally announced we were thrilled to hear we got 2nd place. We left that day with
the satisfaction that even though our contribution may not have been extremely
large scale it was a small step in the right direction. Our college proceeded to win
in events like music and design thinking as well. The overall experience is
something I am very proud and grateful to have been a part of.
- Malavika Rajesh
