Today is World Water Day established by the United Nations, focusing on the importance of freshwater.
To commemorate this water day, our club members participated in the Happy Bean donation held at Open Hands.
In the Philippines, in order to use the Water Kit, a household water purifier, a water tank is essential for storing water to be purified. Most users buy a 20L water tank to connect to the water kit.
However, it is difficult to purchase water tanks, and there are many people who use water tanks that are oily and difficult to manage hygienically.
We hope that by participating in the fundraising for 300 water tanks needed for water filters, clean water tanks will be presented to underprivileged families in the Philippines.
Since the ecosave club donated computers and other necessary items such as Wi-Fi to the villagers in Paopawan, we thought about how to help them more effectively. We talked with the general manager of the village and had our first meeting regarding the needs of the young people there.
We decided to start our first computer class and see how it would go. One of our members, Alberta, held her first computer class on March 15, 2021. The young people at Paopawan followed her directions well while having fun in class. We will have a follow-up meeting soon to talk about more computer lessons.
Food Developers Using Edible Insects As An Ingredient
Prospective occupations will continue to change as a result of new technology and people’s perception and awareness. In that sense, food developers using edible insects as ingredients is quickly arising.
Meat consumption around the world is increasing steadily and environmental problems have been growing seriously. In the process of breeding the livestock, methane gas is generated excessively and greenbelt such as grassland have decreased. As an alternative, ‘edible insect’ is the answer. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, edible insects are almost 77% higher in protein than beef and other meats while it only takes ⅙ of the feed to produce the same amount of the protein. In addition, it produces fewer greenhouse gas.
In the last 10 years, the edible insect food market has risen almost two times. The edible insect food developers have produced new products to diversify the market. In the past, the health food products were mostly in the form of powder, but currently, daily products such as cereal and pasta have been produced. In particular, the pet food product market has increased notably.
However, the biggest problem to the edible insect food developers is the people’s reluctance to “eating insects.” Their issue from past to present has always been to change people’s perception of edible insects. According to KOTRA, it is estimated that people eating edible insects are 2.5 billion around the world. However, there is still much reluctance to eat edible insects in Europe and the Western world. This means that suitable products need to be developed to fit the cultural area. To become a food developer of edible insects, it is important to be able to solve this reluctance among people more than obtaining a school major, license, or certificate. In addition, there aren’t any major edible insect food corporations or companies compared to regular food product companies not large in size. The industry predicts that the growth of the market is clearly obvious but the people in the industry advise that “you must consider the long hours of research until you take it as your profession and make some achievement.”
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!
A young visitor bought our boardgame!
On an ending note, we hope that our efforts will continue to increase the awareness of the global food crisis and the environmental and health benefits that edible insects have.
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.
This summer during my internship, one of my projects was to create an online hygiene lesson for the Cherryl Learning Center.
'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.
