Last week, I got a special opportunity to interview Mr. Hee Chan Park, who is currently on the new renewable energy team of Dohwa Engineering Corporation.
Solar panels are cells that use solar energy as a source of energy and generate electricity. Because of its characteristic that it uses a renewable and unlimited energy source, the sun, solar panels have been recognized as an eco-friendly technology for some time now.
Here is a short interview with Mr. Park on solar panels. Enjoy!
Starting from Thursday, November 12th to Sunday, November 15th, J-poong, the edible insect cafe we have been in contact with for over a year now, participated in the 2020 Mega Show. There, the cafe contributed to the Goyang City Corporate Merchandise Hall with its various edible insect ingredients and snacks.
The Ecosave Club contributed to the cause of spreading awareness of the benefits of edible insects by donating our self-designed boardgames. We were very happy to hear about the increased interest rate from the visitors compared to the 2015 fair. Here are some pictures that they sent us!
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| A young visitor bought our boardgame! |
The Ecosave Club is continuing to fund Cherryl Leaning Center in Inarawan and villagers in Paopawan with computers for educational purposes. This summer, we delivered the fundraiser money to OpenHands Korea, who then funded the two learning centers with computers and other necessary items such as wi-fi. Last month, the children in Cherryl Learning Center also started their online education program.
Here are some pictures from the Philippines!
From Inarawan:
'Personal hygiene' is being emphasized above all in the situation of suffering from COVID-19 infection around the world. As it is well known, the most effective way to prevent COVID-19 is wearing a mask and washing your hands for at least 30 seconds.
In the poor areas of the Philippines, many students do not have basic education, so the level of awareness of personal hygiene is low, making them susceptible to disease. The best way to solve this problem is to teach the importance of hygiene, but there is a limit to conducting hygiene education due to the current outbreak.
In a situation where confirmed cases of COVID-19 continue to increase in the Philippines, OpenHands has planned to create and distribute online hygiene education contents in order to raise the importance and awareness of hygiene for children in poor areas of the Philippines.
The creation of this online hygiene education content was focused on being fun and effective for Filipino students.
This online training includes contents such as 'Why should I wash my hands?', 'Why should I wash my hands with soap for 30 seconds', and 'How to wash my hands.' Using Korea's 'Three Bears' nursery rhymes, we have created creative a video that can attract children's attention.
Link to OpenHands Story: https://openhands.or.kr/27/?q=YToxOntzOjEyOiJrZXl3b3JkX3R5cGUiO3M6MzoiYWxsIjt9&bmode=view&idx=4991796&t=board
by Ji Won Cindy Kim
Link to OpenHands Story: https://openhands.or.kr/27/?q=YToxOntzOjEyOiJrZXl3b3JkX3R5cGUiO3M6MzoiYWxsIjt9&bmode=view&idx=4345712&t=board
With the help of OpenHands, the Ecosave Club successfully donated our self-made boardgames, 'BugHouse.'
This summer, I got an opportunity to intern at OpenHands, a non-profit organization that the Ecosave Club has been partners with for over 4 years now. According to plan, this year's internship was supposed to be the planning for the annual visit to Inarawan. We obviously needed a change in plans, due to the outbreak of COVID-19 and the difficulty of traveling to other countries.
So, for the 4 weeks I interned at OpenHands, we focused on reaching out to the Filipinos virtually.
I accomplished 3 main tasks during my internship at OpenHands:
1. Translation of the Water Kit manual from Korean to English
Water Kit is mentioned multiple times throughout this blog, but to remind some of the readers, it is a simple filtering device that the OpenHand teams developed for those Filipinos living in underdeveloped areas such as Inarawan. The OpenHands team and Ecosave Club used to visit them annually to clean and exchange the filters. Because of the inability to do that this year, I took on the role of translating the already existing Water Kit manual into English, so that volunteers living in the Philippines can reference it while helping out with our original job.
2. Online Hygiene Education for Cherryl Learning Center
This project was planned in the hopes that the students at Cherryl Learning Center will be able to access the videos we have created through the computer we installed the last time we visited. For more information on Cherryl Learning Center and our past connections with the students, please read about it in the previous posts! This time, because we could not visit them directly, we decided to film and edit a quick video on hygiene. The idea of washing hands is very unfamiliar in Inarawan, so we really wanted to make sure the students know proper washing techniques to prevent illness. This video is still in the editing process, so look out for an update!
3. Research on Philippine Organizations that could help with Financial Independence
Lastly, I researched organizations in the Philippines that could help the people in Paopawan become financially independent. Paopawan is a small village located in the northeast of Manilla, Philippines, and it is a collective settlement built according to the government's urban plans. The young men in this village have started a mask business with the help of OpenHands. Their desire to attend school started this project. The main problem with the business at Paopawan is that the products are of varying quality and sizes, so it is almost impossible to sell them. My job here was to research organizations in the Philippines that could help the OpenHands team with educating these people about production.
Read more about the project here: OpenHands newsletter , My research presentation
by Ji Won Cindy Kim
An article published on TheScientist, "Why Insects Should Be in Your Diet" by Aaron T. Dossey, points out several reasons why insects are a promising food source for the global food crisis in the future.
According to this article, the increase in population, and hence the increase in demand for food, will place an immense burden on the earth's environment due to "[c]limate change, reduced productivity of agricultural lands, overfishing, dwindling freshwater resources, pollution from fertilizers and pesticides, and a host of other factors" (Dossey). These are all problems that we are starting to experience right now. Then Dossey proposes a possible solution, which is insects.
Insects, as Dossey describes, have numerous benefits. To begin with, they are sources of numerous important nutrients, such as "the eight essential amino acids, vitamin B12, riboflavin, the biologically active form of vitamin A, and several minerals" (Dossey). Also, insects are particularly high in protein. Usually, we obtain protein from meat, such as cows or pigs. However, raising livestock costs the earth many environmental problems. This is where the environmentally positive aspect of insects comes in. First, insects are more "efficient at transforming a wide variety of organic matter into edible body mass" (Dossey). Meaning, less feed is required of the insects than of the cattle to produce the same amount of nutritious value. One of the reasons why is because insects are cold-blooded, so they do not need to use energy to control their temperature. Second, "[i]nsects are also easy to farm in large quantities using very little space" (Dossey). Insects have significantly larger fecundity and shorter life spans, so they can be grown rapidly, according to the article. Additionally, insects are capable of consuming agricultural waste and plants that humans and traditional livestock cannot. This means that insects don't have to compete for food supply with humans.
As the article points out, there are numerous benefits to eating insects over traditional livestock. The only real problem with them is people's repulsion against their appearance. One way we can tackle this problem is to expose recipes of insects to many people, especially of a younger age, so they can get familiar with them.
Ecosave Club has recently partnered with a local insect cafe and started uploading creative insect recipes on Youtube. We are aiming for many people to watch our videos and start shaking off the hostility towards insects! Come visit our channel, BugHouse365 :)
Link to the article: https://www.the-scientist.com/thought-experiment/why-insects-should-be-in-your-diet-39838
by Ji Won Cindy Kim
