How can I Do more With Less?

Do you think that you can make a difference to people who are hungry or who don’t have enough water to drink? Can you think of ways to stop people pumping harmful toxins into the air?

Well, you can! And for you it is could be really easy because kids think much more creatively than adults.

Do you think that maybe you don’t have enough resources around you to try to solve these problems?
Well, did you know that by using things that are all around you, you can start to find solutions to any problem that you may find in your home or community...?

The Story of Chido Govera

"My name is Chido and I live in Africa. I made a big difference in my community, and here is how i did it....

I used waste to help solve hunger in my village. My village used to be very poor, and there was not enough food for people to eat.

Around my village there were too many flowers, called water hyacinth. These flowers were a big problem, they were taking over the lake. No one could swim in it, or fish in it, we couldn't even cross it in a canoe! And these kinds of flowers aren't native to my country, they were brought in by the colonizers, and here they were causing all these problems.

But when I looked at these flowers, and thought about it, I saw that they could solve the problem of hunger in my village. I learned from some scientists that these plants could be used to grow mushrooms! So we took the flowers out of the lake, chopped them up, and used them to start a mushroom farm. Mushrooms are very very good for people as they contain lots of protein - as much as meat!

Many people in this part of Africa are hungry and don’t have enough food to eat. Not having enough protein is a big problem, and makes people very sick. The mushrooms that we grew using the troublesome flowers helped feed many people. So by looking at our problems differntly, and using waste as a resource we hace solved a number of problems - the people have food, there is less waste in the village, and we can now use the lake!

Now I am not only using the water hyacinth, I am using all kinds of waste from the new mushroom farm that would be left to rot.

You can do the same. Look around your village or city to see how you can use whatever is available to solve a local problem."