Under the Starry Sky Project Updates

The teams selected for WFUNA’s Under the Starry Sky program, held in partnership with Norwegian bank SpareBank 1 SMN, have been implementing their projects to make positive change in their local communities.

Participants from all around the world received in-depth training on the SDGs and project management before implementing their own projects with supervision and guidance from WFUNA. Here are the latest updates from the teams:

Bahtinet

The project has overcome challenges and worked towards a unique outcome of creating alternatives to regular fishing nets designing fishing nets with banana fibres to reduce and secure marine life and eliminate water pollutants. Additionally, they encourage women’s employment in their workforce to have a greater societal and economic impact. They were able to form great networking through hosting events and received grants in the SU Real Life Competition and further funding from the Zayed Sustainability prize.

Bean Team

Bean stands for Building Excitement for Alternative Nutrition, the team is actively involved in sustainable food production and consumption patterns involving the relevant stakeholders in the field. They focus on the development of protein fields and have hosted conferences and guest lectures to get the youth involved in this action.

Clean Cities Project

CCP has trained 100 students in waste management, resulting in a 30%
increase in sanitation on school grounds. It has also introduced 1,000 briquettes from agricultural waste, reducing traditional fuel reliance by 40% in 30 households. It has engaged 50 youths from 10 nations while fostering cross-cultural dialogue on sustainability and climate change. In the meantime, it has also improved community health by 75% achieving empowered mindsets among students by conducting 20,000 online interactions promoting eco-friendly practices. Moving forward, CCP plans to scale the recycling training workshops and production of briquettes, produce substitutes for single-use plastics, and reach out
to 10,000 youths and students by the end of 2023 on climate change, waste management, and sustainability.

EcoFlow

The group has been successful in implementing menstrual awareness and reusable pad distribution and has made progress in reaching out to many rural communities in India. In addition they were also able to raise funds through networking and are determined to pursue this mission. Besides of raising awareness about benefits of reusable pads, the team also had the chance to get sponsored for the collection of the pads by civil society organization in Delhi called the Blind Relief Association. They were also able to further project their mission by distributing and sorting the reusable pads ensuring proper hygiene across communities. They have attempted to also break social stigmas and taboos around menstruation through collective efforts towards engagement with local media, interviews, public platforms acting as a catalyst for increased awareness and usage of the sustainable product promoting healthy living standards.

Ecocharge Bikes

The main outcome the team has developed is an affordable ‘ride to charge bike’ that they wish to integrate into people’s daily routines in their free time. The bike will not be designed as usual bikes to travel from one place to another, rather it will be used to charge mobile devices as the user bikes, while it remains stationary. The team’s collective effort involved designing prototypes testing and receiving feedback and producing the main product to be installed at Uni Mail and Campus Biotech of the university of Geneva. Here students can include physical movement in their routines while also charging their devices.

Empowering Immigrant Women in Canada

The group sought to empower the workforce in Canada through the provision of fair employee opportunities to immigrant women workers, new comers in the operational space. To implement their mission, the team has designed toolkits for distribution in educational institutions as well as other stakeholders to colleges. Through these local partnerships, the team aims to localize the utilization of the toolkits while suggesting capacity building, and building a cohesive social structure combating challenges faced due to gender discrimination and racial affiliations.

The Green Shift Is Blue

The team is involved in engaging the youth in creating a sustainable beach and coastline environments by hosting beach cleaning days. Here the youth learns about collection of plastic waste and littered materials and identifies this as a social responsibility to avoid littering and avoid polluting beaches.

Hand in Hand

The project embarks on a holistic outlook towards the local community and has the vision to provide equal educational opportunities, regardless of children with disabilities. The group has managed to design courses that are inclusive towards deaf and muted children. In their journey they were able to connect with children in Hugergrace and Yanji community to conduct an environmental handicraft course. They have also increased their visibility on digital platforms through setting up their own project account on social media, called Little Red Book, which is profoundly interacted with among Chinese youth.

Oceano Colillas (Local Ashtrays)

The team focuses on innovating sustainable ways of disposing cigarette waste on beaches. They have advanced through challenges collecting Styrofoam to assist the recycling process by organising beach clean ups in partnership with Global Shaper Hub, and receiving Styrofoam from local citizens. They are able to further industrialize this process as they have been able to connect with the Vice Director of INTEM (Institute of Materials Science And Technology Research). After receiving a promising response from them, they are able to conduct their research and create prototypes under laboratory settings under the supervision of team member from the research team at INTEMA.

Mea Salus

The project focuses on helping children overcome mental health and physical challenges by offering classes that discuss ways through which one can overcome psychological issues under social and operational settings. Through partnering with schools, colleges and universities, the group secured some teaching hours to promote mental health education in the academia to assist the development of children and help the ones who need guidance coping with trauma, depression, anxiety at their age.

Offshore Biospots

The group envisions to transition the marine industry towards a ‘greener shift’, through pivoting to sustainable alternatives in marine installations. To support this idea, they have designed a guide that allows flow of ideas and awareness across marine stakeholders, highlighting the significance of nature friendly and sustainable reef structures) targeting protection of marine species. They are also working on the development of a prototype of artificial habitats for endangered marine species.

One Pulse

This project encourages youth towards making change by collaborating with non-profit organizations, and companies together to form a collective movement to forefront the productive use leveraging solar energy assisting the empowerment of the agricultural sector in underdeveloped areas with almost no access to electricity. They embarked on their journey by securing funds for their project to implement the training programs and installation of productive use leveraging solar energy (PULSE) that includes a PCM-based solar panel cooling system and solar panel. And wish to pursue creating more networking to continue the development of their initiative in other villages of Indonesia.

Organised Matter

This project advocates for the 3Rs, reuse, reduce and recycle through the production of waste sorting machines, mandating for exhibitions, and open discussions in workshops to raise awareness. The team is working on a AI waste sorting bin that they yearn to launch at their university therefore promoting sustainable waste management patterns across the local youth.

Pollinator Friends

The project facilitates the survival of pollinators through the cultivation of monocultures, the use of pesticides, and intensifying agricultural infrastructure to secure pollinator populations in Norway. They manage to do so by coordinating with local municipality and urban management coordinator and head of department for urban space and vegetation in Norway. They have also received promising support from NGOs La Humla Suse, fostering their implementation in local university gardens and local areas in the county.

Reconnecting Mother Nature

This group has led initiatives promoting education and learning opportunities in the sector of sustainability, and nature and acquiring ways to mitigate environmental degradation through not only making lifestyle changes but also incorporating it in the pursuit of knowledge in schools. Their idea was inspired by TiNi methodology, replicating the idea of creating a network between youth and nature to encourage the development of active empathy for nature.

RESKI

As enthusiasts for snow activities, the team members have commenced in the journey of exploring and assessing ways through which skiing can become a sustainable activity. They seek to understand and come up with renewable ways to integrate sustainable materials in the production of skis and help consumers in making a conscious choice when selecting their ski equipment. Through partnering with researchers at skis and smorning and Norges skiforbund, they are able to have access to credible information.

Ansvarling Merch (Responsible Merch)

The team has been extremely successful in moving towards a step closer to production of sustainable merchandise, by establishing a tote bags rack in Trondheim Torg. The stakeholders involved in the production and design of the tote bags, have also explored the option of donating bags to organization such as Frellsersarmeen, which provides free food to individuals in need, and their tote bags will be useful in delivering and packaging the food. Additionally their bags will also reduce the amount of waste produced due to surplus or unused merchandise, as the tote bags are made from the surplus, proving to be beneficial for the company and the people receiving the product due to its sustainable designing procedure.

SEED

The core principle of this group has been to engage children from grades 2-6 in sustainable learning, through interactive approaches towards acquiring knowledge upon sustainable lifestyle choices. Their goal has been progressively moving forwards as they have received awards and recognition for their achievements across schools in Quebec. They were able to connect with 150 students, who were exposed to take part in opportunities relating to food and climate sustainability. They have received immense recognition for the scale of their impact not only by their university, McGill’s research counsellors but also were chosen to be Forces AVENIRs finalist, a Quebec-based awards program. Besides, they were also able to extend their vision to hosting 8 different summer camps in New York City and Philadelphia.

Seneclean 3.0

This project is driven by the vision to help with the collection of plastic waste and create a public infrastructure from the plastic collected, while also compounding it with other construction materials to establish a public square in Dakar city. They are able to conduct this by connecting with civil engineers with expertise in plastic pavement production to build the targeted pavement in Nigeria.

Spots for All

The group has made significant progress in initiating swimming and volleyball trainings. The team aims to encourage participation of sports across all range of age groups. Besides, from conducting trainings, the team has also managed to design a handbook that will be sent out to all sport clubs in the country. The handbook will motivate sports clubs to make all age groups engage in sports, become more physically active on regular basis. Receiving promising feedback from training clubs in Stijordalen and Charlottenlund who wish to continue to offer this idea to their customers. Upon further reflection, they are working upon ‘invitation’ to all sports in Norway which will being them closer to their goal of Sports For All. The group outreach with one of the members of the representative bodies in Charlottenlund has given them immense gratification and official validation on the project.

Sustainable Learning

The team has been implementing activities by hosting local events, and setting up their stalls to educate individuals about the significance of protecting rare or on the verge off extinction natural resources and creating positive associations with sustainable lifestyle choices in order to preserve them. They have hosted a stall at events and in schools, and directed the puzzle related games that potentially enrich the young  participants knowledge regarding preserving natural resources rather than exhausting and overconsumption patterns of these resources.

Sustainable Neighbourhood

The group has organized variety of workshops towards the creation of shelter for insects, flower crates, insect hotels to promote biodiversity and provide safety net for the preservation of insects. By creating networking with Naturvernforbundet in Trondheim, the group was able to acquire a platform to deliver and implement this project as well as receive funds to facilitate for all the materials needed.

The Project Suicide

The members of this team, deal with the investigating the prevalence of suicide rates and raising awareness about mental health issues associated with suicidal tendencies among men and women across range of age groups. They were able to execute this mission and create impact among local communities in Pakistan by hosting awareness campaigns in local districts and educational institutes.

The Taste of Sustainability

The team organized a complimentary three-course meal made from surplus food to focus on food waste. The project involved collecting food that would have been thrown away and collaborating with renowned chefs and volunteers to prepare a meal and distribute it in school cafeterias. The aim is to show people how much good food is thrown away and engage people to make more sustainable choices both as consumers and at home.

Think Wilder

The project has aimed to promote the integration of environment and nature in the education system to shape the younger generation’s outlook on environment preservation, and combating climate change, food and nature sustainability. This is pivotal for building a strong network of individuals who are engaged in not only acquiring nature education but also applying it in real life settings as the modules set during class settings are interactive, collaborative and encourages action on an individual basis. They designed handbooks that were given out during teaching sessions who will channel the knowledge across the students in the classroom. They have gained credibility with their sources by partnering with Oxplore, which allows them to reach a greater group of audience. Another stakeholder but on the digital platform is resource hub, where they document pdfs presenting resources regarding sustainable knowledge, preservation of food and natural resources, and it also allows them to connect with other organisations who can promote their mission across different schools in the UK, expediting the scope of their impact.

Tomorrow’s Heroes

The group implemented their projects in primary schools and took inspiration from Prisoners of the Fortress. Participants were given 10 challenging cases to solve and 2 dilemmas. Upon completion of a mission, the participant received a fictional currency based on the quality of their performance, offering a sense of acknowledgement towards the progression in the game. Through this game, they were able to integrate the theme of sustainability across three domains. The challenges corresponded to ways through which participants would combat climate change, economic unrest, perpetuate long term economic development while considering environmental implications. Last theme characterised the significance of social issues and encouraged participants to think critically about promoting equality in access to education and health. The end goal of the game was to collectively accumulate the highest amount of fictional currency, reflecting the groups sustainable decision making concerning economic growth and social welfare matters.

Watersaver

In regards to water hygiene and sustainability services, this team has been working towards designing an optimal water filter under lab settings. They have been exploring various types of filtration methods and sampling processes by investigating grey water samples created in the laboratory with zeolite and grey water with carbon. They have also assessed the sampling process by assessing the water in a categorical framework: based on pH, conductivity, turbidity, and chemical oxygen demand (COD). Through this scientific exploration, they have managed to collect incredible amount of data to reach conclusions and a success towards their prototype of the filer with corresponding materials. The filter also serves a reduction towards of greywater turbidity, allowing for the reusability of greywater for domestic purposes.