雅歌私塾的部落格

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...? 

你覺得我們可以為那些沒有飯吃沒有水喝的人做什麼嗎？你可以想辦法遏止那些人排放毒氣嗎？

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."

琪朵的故事

我是琪朵，我住在非洲，我所做的讓我住的社區有所不同。

我在村中以廢棄物來解決飢餓的問題。我的家鄉過去很窮，大家沒有足夠食物吃。

我們村子裡有太多的花叫做水葫蘆(台灣叫布袋蓮)。這些花造成問題，把湖泊堵住了，沒有人可以游泳、釣魚、連獨木舟都划不過去。這些花不是本土植物，是殖民者帶進來的品種，它們造成很多問題。

但是我看著花，想到它們可以解決村中飢餓的問題。有科學家告訴我這些植物可以用來種香菇。我們從湖裡把花摘出來，剁碎，用來種香菇。香菇含有蛋白質，像肉那麼多的蛋白質，對人體非常好。

非洲很多地方都有飢荒，沒有足夠的食物吃，特別是蛋白質不夠，使得許多人生病很衰弱。我們用麻煩的花種出來的香菇餵飽許多人。因此如果你換個不同的角度來看我們如何用廢物解決問題：我們不只是有了食物，我們還減少了廢棄物，現在我們還找回了湖泊。