Moms always hand lunch boxes over to their children with the prayer that the food, packed with love, should not be wasted. Food wastage is a nagging issue for schools, especially those who have their own catering facility. Students of TVS schools have found an effective solution to the problem, a feat that has also brought laurels for them at the 17 International Convention for Student Quality Circles 2014 held at Kingston University, London, between June 24 and 28. Seven students from TVS Lakshmi School, who participated in the convention, bagged the first place for the case study presentation on wastage of food on campus. They were N. Saureesh, Thohai Sudhir, D. Ritika, M. Harshitha, V.M. Kayal, Dakshin Karthik and S. Dharsni and were among the 18 teams from more than 10 countries.
“Through the Quality Circle functioning through the year, the students are encouraged to study issues on campus and come up with effective solutions,” said Selvi Santosham, Coordinator of Quality Circles at the TVS schools.
Case studyThe winning team, which presented its case study on food wastage, first identified the reasons for the wastage. “While a few students were not aware of the wastage, some remained insensitive to it. Many also found the food served at school not tasty because they preferred junk food,” said Ritika, a student of class IX.
Calling itself ‘Amudhasurabhi,’ the team first identified the class which wasted the maximum food. “We analysed the reasons and addressed them starting with awareness programmes. They included rallies, door-to-door campaign and screening of videos highlighting the issue,” explained Saureesh of class IX.
The team also encouraged students to grow and maintain their own mini-vegetable gardens near their classrooms. Thohai Sudhir said that this was to give them an idea of the efforts made by a farmer to grow vegetables.
“After implementation of these solutions, the average food wastage by 124 students came down to 1.8 kg from 14.24 kg a week,” said S. Dharsni.
Students from the school also bagged the first place in the collage competition at the convention and third place at the skit competition.
Two other teams from TVS Matriculation Higher Secondary School participated in the convention. While one team (afternoon shift) won the first prize in skit and the second prize in debate, the team from the forenoon shift received a special commendation in debate.
