The demand for papers will be always there in schools, universities, offices and even for the passionate writers and poets. The unconditional consumption of papers will be endless since there are unlimited demands of papers by the students, teachers and office workers. They prefer to write on papers rather to type on computers but what about the wastage of papers? What about the unused papers discarded which could be used for other purposes? For instant, look at the school going children in urban areas, they buy new copies every year – 3 copies each for a subject and at the end of the year there are several pages left at the back of the copy which they eventually throw away. Similarly, university works are all done in paper works such as assignments, printing slides, printing documents and buying copies for each subject every semester and the papers and copies are thrown away the same way without even using the leftover papers at the back. The abundance of papers in urban institutions seems so overwhelming.
However, on the other side, there are village schools short of such resources to provide it to the students. There are children who are unable to afford multiple copies for their school; they tend to use one copy for their school works to complete a whole year. Hence, Kagojpotro tried to find a sustainable way to tackle the discharge papers into something useful. How?
The project “Kagojpotro” aims to collect the discarded papers from schools and universities residing in urban areas to make copies out of those papers (both side empty, one side empty) and distribute to the village schools where the children long for just a paper to write on.
The papers that we collect are:
1.
Papers that are left unused (both side empty)
2.
Papers that has laser ink/used on one side. (One side empty)
3.
Both side used – are being sold to recycle and the money are invested back to the project for buying material to make the copies.
Kagojpotro also aims to use old calendars or hard magazine papers as cover of the copies.
Objectives:
1. To reduce discharge level of paper waste
2. Providing copies to the deprived children in the village schools.
3. Installing Recycle box in every schools and universities and office place.
4. Encouraging school and universities to distribute their unused, leftover papers and old calendars to a particular recycle box installed by Kagojpotro.
5. Involving youths to participate in collecting, making and distributing the copies.
Since we have limited capital and man power, we started off by installing recycle box in the Department of Environmental Science and Management at North South University where students and faculties from all the departments drop their unused leftover papers and old calendars. On 3 month basis, young on-call volunteers help to clean the recycle box by sorting out the papers based on the categories mentioned above.
The remaining both side filled papers are sold to be recycled and the money are being used to buy materials to make copies like scissors, strings, pencils, scales and pens.
The papers that are collected from the recycle box are then stitched together to make copies by a group of four members who gives their time and effort on Fridays.
The materials that are used to make the copies are red and white strings, scissors, screwdriver (to make holes in the copies), punch machine (alternative of screwdriver), pencils, pens, scales and both side tapes (for covers).
And the final product looks like the following:
The white calendar covered copies are being designed by the Designing Team of Kagojpotro voluntarily conducted by Ruksher Ahmed Bhabna to add colours to the copies.
For distribution, we currently targeted a school in Nairapara village of Netrokona in the North side of Bangladesh and plan to target more schools in the South-west, South-east and North West of the country.
While distributing, the volunteers of Kagojpotro will have 3 hour session with the students of the village schools and during this 3 hours volunteers will be assigned with groups of 30 to 40 students with whom they are encourage to involve with varies activities such as:
1. Drawing competition
2. Poem recitation
3. Story-telling
4. Awareness dramas regarding any issues.
5. Quiz games or sports
Finally, before leaving the location, the copies will be distributed to the students as a token of gift.
Long-run Goals:
1. To install Recycle Box in every department of North South University and as well as target the schools for installation of Recycle Box.
2. Identifying schools where there are students being deprived of not being able to afford to enroll in school.
3. Train more people in making the copies.
4. Engage more people into sectors of collecting papers, making copies and in distribution sessions.
Source of Fund:
Currently, there is not much to invest apart from the materials used to make copies and that money is collected from selling the both side used papers for recycle and additional costs are being managed voluntarily. However, installation of recycle box in a larger scale, distributing to specific schools from each district around Bangladesh and training people to make copies needs a sufficient fund. Thus, Kagojpotro is planning to train young writers to write proposals to different social and environmental-friendly organizations for fund and sponsorship so that in return we can promote their social businesses among the community by putting their logo on the copies and the recycle boxes. This way the business will gain an image of corporate social responsibility among the community by supporting our cause.
