Policarpio (Tony) Soberanis and Kyle Sieck, students at the University of Iowa (UI), are here working with Shuddham as part of UI’s three-week “Social Entrepreneurship in India” study abroad program.
Tony is a PhD student in Industrial Engineering and Kyle is finishing up his last year as an undergraduate in Geography and Philosophy.
I grew up in Belize, Central America, where I worked with my mother, trying to help the citizens of the largest city change their attitude toward the freedom that we have to throw our garbage anywhere we please. We had great success. Now, I am a PhD student in Industrial Engineering at the University of Iowa and I would like to use all the knowledge that I have amassed along with the values that have been instilled in me by my mother to help wherever I can.
A few reasons why I have come to India are 1) I wanted a service learning experience in another country, 2) I wanted to offer my perspectives on sustainability and greening cities, 3) I find Indian culture and Eastern philosophy very interesting, and 4). I’m interested in tropical agriculture and growing food in densely populated areas. I expressed interest in working with Shuddham because I like their mission of “Rediscovering Hamony” and I like how their work seeks to improve the quality of live through improving the local environment. Shuddham’s philosophy is in line with my own ethics and I hope to help them out as much as I can.
Tony and Kyle have been working with Shuddham on a number of education and advocacy projects, including:
- Working with the NSS students of Tagore Arts College to plan an awareness generation campaign against littering on Beach Road on the weekends
- Designing an educational poster about the segregation of garbage for students and households in Pondicherry
- Adapting existing police barricades (used to block cars and other wheeled vehicles to make Beach Road pedestrian only every evening) and designing banners to promote a green, clean, and peaceful Pondicherry
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Kolam Competition « Essere // January 14, 2008 at 5:53 pm
[...] been destroyed by passing traffic, so all the pictures shown here (with permission) were taken by Policarpio (Tony) Soberanis, who was also too late to capture more than 230 of the 500 [...]
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