A LIVING EXAMPLE OF THE PARABLE OF THE EDUCATED FROG IN BOILING WATER
I was recently at the Creativity Adda government school project in Mukherjee Nagar Delhi. This project is near Delhi University, which is considered the premiere university of the country. There is also a huge polluted, super stinky canal (part of Yamuna river) near the Delhi University metro. My community media hub facilitator came and told me that all of our computers are becoming dead and they need to buy new ones. When we had shown the computers to a professional repair person (with the hopes of salvaging them), he said they were total dead and un-repairable because of erosion of the copper wires due to acid vapours coming from the canal (more than 1km away). Needless to say, I was totally shocked. If these toxic vapours are destroying the computers, I wondered what they were doing to the health of those who live and work nearby. More so, I wondered why no one from the university took up the challenge of trying to solve this dangerous problem. Are they too busy trying to complete their course syllabuses or too busy with preparing for exams or too busy applying for corporate slave jobs or too busy building startup apps for delivering pizza faster. No one of course cares about the people living in the slums right on the canal or the lives of government school kids. But these fumes are affecting DU students and faculty for at least the past decade. The fumes don’t make class or education level distinctions. I can’t understand why are the so-called best and brightest minds of the country not concerned with their own health and their ecosystem health? Why are the university students not being equipped to research and solve real world problems? (The same question also applies to air quality these days in Delhi). What kind of education system is this? How can the students and faculty ignore a problem which is literally in your nose? Who is accountable for this absurdity? I invite dynamic design thinkers, innovators and scientists to come work with our government school Makerspace and Design Studio children in creativityadda.org on how to solve this challenge and evolve new more relevant models of education and localisation.
- Manish Jain, www.ecoversities.org
