Matone de Chiwit Google Hangout

On April 19, we had a Google Hangout with Karishma Bhagani. She is a student at the University of New York and a past IB student who used to live in Mombasa, Kenya. We spoke to her about her project, which was to create water purifiers that cost 10$ US to make. It’s called ‘Matone de Chiwit’, which meant ‘Drops of LIfe’ in 3 different languages. The purifiers were to help third world countries such as Kenya, gain access to clean water.

Watching the Google Hangout and seeing her passion to help was really empowering. I enjoyed how she explained everything with such detail and it was great to hear her be so excited about her project. It made me want to root for her and want to help as well. Some questions that were asked were, “How do you feel after accomplishing the goal of clean drinking water?” Her answer was that it was a really long process in order to reach the final project , that she felt great success and was happy that it worked after failing previously. Karishma also said that she knew that if she wanted to create a sustainable solution, she would have to keep working on it. Another question was “What problems did you run into and what did you struggle with?” Karishma said that the fact that the water used could not be river or ocean water, limited  what the purifier could do, but she envisions making it possible for all sort of types of water in the future. My group’s question that we settled on was “What motivates you to do what you do?” and her answer was that there are many things, but first and foremost was to be able to give back to her community. Karishma says “never forget your roots” because her high school motivates her as well. Things like seeing smiles on peoples’ faces when she gave them water purifiers also encouraged her to continue to work on the project.

I have learned a lot about the condition of many third world countries during my school career, but the chat reminded me to never take anything for granted and that there is so much I can still do to help. I can and should spend my time better and do helpful things that can potentially make a difference in the world.