Mangalore: Rural children’s project bags international laurels

 

Mangalore, 19 Jun 2014 (TOI): These village girls have proved that long lasting ropes and gunny bags can be produced using ’communist plant’, a commonly found weed in villages. CN Deepika and Ayesha Fahima, class X students from Sudana High School, Puttur in Dakshina Kannada bagged laurels at the International Environment Sustainability Project Olympiad (INESPO) 2014 at Hague, Netherlands by presenting ’Fibres and Weeds’, a unique project that explains how strong fibres can be extracted from ’eupatorium’.

 

Children’s project guide Sadhana Hebbar told that Deepika and Ayesha have won the fourth Grand Award among 175 projects from 45 countries at the International Environment Sustainability Olympiad 2014 at Hague, Netherlands.

 

"They have shown that the fibres from Eupatorium plant, a weed, can be used in the preparation of various utility items like mats, ropes, gunny cloth, ropes and composite material. These are better in durability and strength than items derived from other natural fibres. The removal of this problematic weed by making useful items is the unique selling point of this project," Hebbar said.

 

She said children had won prizes at the regional level competition of Science Society of India Mangalore. They won medal and qualified to take part in the international fair at the national level competition held in Chennai in January, which was conducted by the National Level Science and Engineering Fair, in collaboration with the Science Society of India.

 

"Based on the suggestions of Jayashree Bhat, the in-charge of a paying guest accommodation, where Deepika resides, children worked on the project. They spent nearly an year to complete the project after lot of tests and experiments to prove that eupatorium also can be used to extract fibres. CFTRI Mysore and Alva’s Engineering College, Moodbidri helped them in conducting chemical tests and analysis," Hebbar said adding that school correspondent Rev Vijay Harvin, secretary Dr Peter Wilson Prabhakar and headmistress Shobha Nagaraj supported the duo.