By Our Correspondent
A visit by the Ambassador of Netherlands to Qatar to the International School of London Qatar (ISL Qatar) featured a musical performance by the students and a lecture by her on green entrepreneurship.
Ambassador of Netherlands to Qatar Yvette Burghgraef-van Eechoud explained the disastrous consequences of human action on the environment and concluded that positive action must be taken: “We need to be the change.”
Ambassador Eechoud then proceeded to explain six different initiatives taken by several Dutch companies to fight climate change and environmental degradation.
At Fairphone, the company manufactures “fair” smartphones made from conflict free minerals (supporting families not armed militias), paying fair wages to the workers and reducing waste by providing replaceable parts and tailor made accessories.
At Superuse Studios the architects design entire houses and playgrounds out of waste materials.
She also described WakaWaka, which is an impact driven, social venture that fights to abolish energy poverty throughout the world. The WakaWaka Light is a highly efficient and sustainable solar-powered LED lamp that avoids the use of kerosene lamps, while The WakaWaka solar charger is a mobile phone charger that combines the original lamp with the ability to charge phones and other handheld devices while still providing hours of bright, safe light. The company runs a Buy One, Give One campaign ie people pre-ordering a WakaWaka Power for themselves are also giving one to Syrians in refugee camps.
The students particularly appreciated the “LeaseAJeans” system created by a Dutch denim company that offers people the chance to lease a pair of jeans for five euros a month. After a year’s lease, the jeans can be swapped for a new pair, bought outright, or simply returned. The company ensures that every garment that comes back to them gets recycled, and the jeans are made with printed labels instead of leather labels to make recycling easier.
The first Repair Café was initiated in Amsterdam back in 2009 and it has now spread to various cities across the Netherlands as well as to other countries. Repair Cafés are free meeting places where people bring along their broken items such as appliances, clothes, furniture, toys, etc. and, together with the specialists at the café, they try to repair them. Thus, valuable practical knowledge is passed on and electrical items are being used for longer which reduces the volume of raw materials and energy needed to make new products. Further elaborating on this idea, for Qatar, the Ambassador suggested giving away or selling for a low price the repaired appliances to the low income workers.
She concluded her talk by presenting the Smog Ring, created by the Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde, a “vacuum cleaner” that literally sucks-up polluted air. The rings are made from the polluted material in one cubic kilometre of smog and consequently removes that from the atmosphere. It comes with either a fake diamond made from soot or a stone with a cube of soot in the centre.
The Headmaster of ISL Qatar, Christopher Charleson, commented, “This topic is obviously a passion for Ambassador Burghgraef-van Eechoud and equally so it is a passion for many of the ISL Qatar students. We would like to thank the ambassador for the spark of inspiration that has already ignited some creative ideas in our community. We look forward to seeing how they develop.”