May-2015-ICE-Today-PDf

Cover FocusCover Storymade up of bottles were installed in slums. This struckSajid as a brilliant idea and he thought this could beimplemented in Bangladesh as well. Since 95% of theslum households in the country use illegal electricity, aproject like this would reduce the misuse of electricityand also benefit the environment. He used this idea asa research paper for university. “We convinced aboutfour to five families from the slum areas of theMuslim camp to adopt this new technique. Initially,we faced a lot of challenges. One common problemwas rainwater leaking from the roof tops. Moreover,we also had to face issues like social acceptance.Despite all obstacles, finally we got a positiveresponse from a lady who wove saris for a living. Shehad to get her job done even if it was under minimallighting. Considering her conditions, this bottle lightwas a godsend. It was inspiring to see that this projectwas actually helping people and that encouraged meto pursue this more seriously,” the twenty-six year oldenvironmentalist informs.Sajid entered a social business competition organisedby South Asian Youth Leaders' Summit. Later thatyear, he presented the idea of bottle lights at theSummit with its environmental benefits and came outas the first runner up.With the attention from the local media, Sajid Iqbal’sefforts finally caught the eye of the Liter of Lightorganisation situated in the Philippines. “We signed acontract with Liter of Light to be their partner inBangladesh in September 2012. They provided astrong global network and allowed the sharing ofinformation. After that, we got in touch with theGerman and Swiss embassies about expanding thisproject. The German corporation called GIZ handedus an eight month long project in March 2013. Theproject entailed installing bottle lights in a new slumcalled Baoniabadh. We installed two hundred and fiftylight bulbs and in the end ,we found that we reducedthe electricity misuse to 8.3 megawatts per month.Furthermore, three hundred and twenty kilograms ofcarbon emission were also reduced. Twenty eightmore lights were installed in a school at the Genevacamp of Mohammadpur.” To overcome the socialchallenges, Iqbal came up with a plan to campaignabout the environmental benefits by giving out leafletsto make people aware that bottle lights shouldn’t haveanything to do with their social status. In September2014, CHANGE distributed Botol Bati, amongst schoolchildren of Khasia community in a remote area calledDouble Chhara in Sylhet. After researching and slogging ata workshop for more than six months, Sajid Iqbal andAsaduzzaman Noor, the technician working for Change wasable to develop the design and the first unit of Solar Bati.CHANGE provided thirty-two lights at Double Chhara tothe best four students from each class of the school at theend of a seminar titled “Solar Light Distribution Project”.At the seminar, Iqbal showed the students how to use thesolar lights.About his future plans, Iqbal said that with assistance fromthe government and private organisations, CHANGE plansto expand. In addition to this, he is involved in extensiveresearch to use bottle light technology for industrialpurposes. Iqbal hopes to get the youth more involved inenvironmental based activities in Bangladesh.