My experience
First, I wanted to say that this project made me improve some skills that I did not know i had. For example, contacting people and getting feedback, contacting people that are in the Dominican Republic and working with them, or even contacting people from a company! I learned a lot about real science, and what we can do with that, and that if we want to accomplish our goals, we need to work hard and there’s a lot of different stages to complete. Now I see that we do not only learn science just because we have to, but to take life skills from what we learn. And something really important that I learned was that failures are the stepping stones for success. Failures are part of our life and if we dont fail, we dont learn, and if you dont learn, you will never change.
My experience:
One of the things that I did was contacting with Liter of Light. Liter of Light is a global, grassroots movement committed to providing affordable, sustainable solar light to people with limited or no access to electricity. Through a network of partnerships around the world, Liter of Light volunteers teach marginalized communities how to use recycled plastic bottles and locally sourced materials to illuminate their homes, businesses and streets. Liter of Light has installed more than 350,000 bottle lights in more than 15 countries and taught green skills to empower grassroots entrepreneurs at every stop. When we contacted them, a sir called Nico helped us telling us some advises, they told us what their campaign is all about. They also sent us a manual with the instructions for doing a LED light with solar panels and plastic bottles. Here it is :
Then, I started working on some fundraising, and so with my partner on a video with some interviews to people from the Dominican Republic, thats why we asked Eladio and Dennis for some footage, bute they didnt answer because they were on a break, so we are still waiting for that video. But even like that, we still continued working on it. It was hard though, waiting for emails and answers, because when contacting with people from different country is difficult, they are not next to you to discuss better, but it was okay.
I feel like we didnt have a lot of time for testing some projects we had, like the designs for LED lights, and some fairs that we wanted to do at the school. But, we learned a lot about the Dominican Republic and about what we can do with all the things we learn in class. This project was actually really fun and stressful at the same time, but I definitely loved it. I think that I am going to still working on my goals, that I havent finished at all. For example, as I said before, test my designs. I think that the collaboration went pretty well! We did almost everything on our list, and if it wasnt because of time, I think that we would be done.
We aim to improve the quality of life of vulnerable families through the lighting. To meet this goal we have thought of working with LED lights, solar energy and fundraising.
Sources for images:
https://www.google.ca/search?q=republica+dominicana&espv=2&biw=1242&bih=580&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjqirrA3snRAhVDKWMKHaJtBowQ_AUIBygC#tbm=isch&q=republica+dominicana+bateyes&imgrc=HsRkh-jOGjyJsM%3A
https://www.google.ca/search?q=that+failures+are+the+stepping+stones+for+success.&espv=2&biw=1242&bih=580&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj-pvns5s7RAhVP42MKHWAyD3MQ_AUIBigB#tbm=isch&q=that+failures+are+the+stepping+stones+for+success+instagram&imgrc=zWJfpxpajqgHNM%3A
It is great to hear the story of your connections-based learning. This post included so much: motivating and inspiring paragraphs, instructions to build lights out of pop bottles, a presentation! I admire your group for the risks that you took and the results that you saw. I am glad to hear that you wish to continue pressing into this idea of battling light poverty. I hope you can keep this experience in your mind as you tackle the rest of your schooling! Great work!
Hi Maria,
Excellent blog post! Fantastic job embedding your work into your post, and also making great use of visuals in this post. It really helped paint the picture you were trying to create! I also liked how you included information from your previous blog posts to help demonstrate all of the steps in your process. You clearly shared your thoughts and your ideas for this project. It is amazing how many connections you made around the continent.
Good job! 🙂