In conversation with The Ramon Magsaysay awardee Sonam Wangchuk. We explore what's education for, climate change, the I live simply movement, why it's cool to travel by train and not flight, mother tongue's influence, sustainability hacks and the impact a teacher can have on a child. PS: His life inspired the character of “Phunsukh Wangdu” in Aamir Khan's 3 Idiots.
PPS: This episode is full of surprises! From crackers bursting in the middle of a normal day to recording in Bangalore traffic!
About I Live Simply movement:
A unique crowd-funding campaign where the contribution made is not monetarily, rather by pledging a greener and simpler lifestyle changes.
As leaders of tomorrow, students’ participation in this movement can have a huge impact on fighting global warming. Some of the pledges today’s youth can make could be: Making your college campus plastic-free, planting more trees in your campus and around, adopting bike-pooling or using more of public transport, reducing unnecessary water consumption, less data consumption which meant lesser online streaming, taking initiatives to partner with waste management organisations for proper recycling of e-waste, TetraPaks, plastics etc.
PS: To measure the impact of this episode I urge you to use #ilivesimply #TheGalataPodcast
Link: https://www.ilivesimply.org/
About Sonam Wangchuk,
A mechanical engineer by education, Sonam has worked in the field of education reform for 27+ years. The man who inspired the popular “Phunsukh Wangdu” character in the Bollywood hit Three Idiots, Sonam has been instrumental in changing the face of education in the mountains. His sessions throw a whole new perspective on innovation and entrepreneurship that embraces social change.
In 1988, he founded SECMOL (Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh) that aims to reform the government school system in Ladakh. In 1994 he was instrumental in the launch of Operation New Hope, a triangular collaboration of the government, village communities and the civil society, whose work has been instrumental in improving the pass percentage of 10th graders in the region from a dismal 5% to 75%.
For students who still failed in their state exams, he founded the SECMOL Alternative School Campus near Leh, a special school where the admission criterion is a failure in exams and not grades. As an engineer, Sonam Wangchuk has been teaching innovation at the SECMOL Alternative School, where together with the students, he designed and built solar heated buildings that are low cost, made of earth/mud but maintain +15 C even when the outside temperature is –15 C in Ladakhi winters.
His “Ice Stupa” artificial glacier has claimed fame for helping solve the water crisis in the region due to climate change and fast melting glaciers. The Ice Stupas store water in the winter in the form of giant ice cones or stupas, which melt over summer and provide water to the lands, just in time for irrigation.
Sonam is the recipient of several awards, The Rolex Award for Enterprise 2016 in Hollywood USA, The Terra Award 2016 for World’s Best Earth Buildings in Lyon France, The UNESCO Chair for Earth Architecture for India in 2014, ‘Real Heroes’ Award by CNN IBN Channel in 2008, ‘Green Teacher’ Award by Sanctuary Asia Magazine in 2005, Ashoka Fellowship by Ashoka: Innovators for the Public in 2002, ‘Man of the Year’ by The Week magazine in India in 2001 and the Governors Medal by the J&K State Government in 1996.
Introduction Credits: Outstanding Speakers Bureau.
Links to reach Sonam:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Wangchuk66
The usual first question I asked to my guests is, what are the conversations around the dinner table when you're growing up?
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When I was growing up as a child,
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Most of the times it was like Chinese one.
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Brother did this. And friend did this and complaining to my mother and my mother was almost fed up of this, I was the youngest of my four brothers. So most of the times that but what I might share of the more profound conversations was that there was a time when my older brothers were like teenagers, and they were questioning everything, they were influenced by what was happening in LA as it open to the world with the road coming in. And so called modernization taking off and what I still, you know, often these days, Think back and think of is how Why is my mother was about how to live in that. So I remember these discussions, particularly where my brothers would say, Mother, why do you keep all these cows? They hardly give much milk? Why don't you sell them? And then get a tractor to plow the fields? Like every family, My family was a farming family apart from other things they would do.
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offseasons? Yeah,
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yeah. So my mother would say, Well, if you bring it chapter covering it to get manure for the fans.
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And If you don't get him anymore for the fans, and the fans do not produce, Well, how will you get the money to buy fuel for your tractor. So I remember how wisely she could see this cycle, which I find very hard to see, even today that just replacing your animals with a tractor doesn't tell them she would. In those days, this was in the 70s, early 70s, he would say, If you remove the animals manure will go out. And If you give it artificial fertilizers, which were the beginnings at that time, she would say it would not sustain the life in the soil. So it would become hard and won't support life. And that will then make the agriculture system fail. And I saw that happening Exactly in other places who did use those. And she would resist as an unschooled woman from remote village, She had the wisdom to see that these are all interconnected, you know, you can't remove one little piece and think that it will still go on. So that's what I remember. Very often nowadays, as we see the crisis of farmers getting into this debt draft. Later, they sell their animals and buy those tractors. Now I see. And those farms don't have fertilizers now that they don't have animals. So they have to get fertilizers to get the fertilizers, they have to get loans. And then the farm doesn't produce enough, they can pay the credits. And when that happens, they commit suicide. She saw that back then, when this green revolution was it at its beginnings, And so called educated schooled in people like my brothers would laugh at her. And she resisted and kept her animals. And, thankfully, so, Wow.
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Unusual how wisdom is so evident in these individuals? Or if not?
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That brings me to a question that I've been wanting to ask you.
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In today's generation, What do you think education is for?
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So I feel education generally is to help children prepare for the life of the times they live. Okay. So, back when we were hunter gatherers, education was about hunting, gathering stamina, power, and so on. So the kids who were very sharp and very good at running after or running before predators, were the heroes. times changed Today, those who are good at maths and science are the heroes, because we went through a process called Industrial Revolution, where everything could be done by machines, outsource to energies other than our own, to the fossil fuels under the earth.
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And for that, what they needed was not the smartest
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trackers, I did not provide. So
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they do not need the agility of hunter gatherers. So those were down, those heroes were dumb. And they needed science and math. So those heroes started enjoying the limelight. Okay. But then times have changed. So 300 years ago, education was all about preparing the kids for the technologies that were coming up conquering nature and building and making factories where the in thing, So that was what education became. But today, If you asked about today's children, I think we need to update this system. It's long overdue, We're still doing the same thing that caused all the problems of today. So today, we are seeing the consequences of this extremely science and technology oriented education and lifestyle. Because of which now air is unbreakable water is undrinkable, Earth is untouchable, and so on. And we are still putting the same field. And somebody clever said, if you do the same things, you will get the same results we don't seem to accept understand that. And therefore I think today education should be about undoing all those things today should be about healing the earth and nature rather than conquering it. Today, It should be about reforest, Sting and f4 esteem. But rather, I learned recently that most of our forestry Institute's are still continuing with curricula that talks about how to cut the forests, how to exploit the forest, and that's their forestry school within us, forestry schools, and all schools of today should be about how to green the planet. So It should be about, above all, he the only home that we have, And of course developing sensitivities and empathy towards all living beings, not just myself, or my family, or my countrymen, but also our siblings in the wild. animals and insects are our siblings on the same home planet. The trees, the rivers and mountains are our siblings and relatives. So extending this care for others, When we say care for others. So far, we only say this is for other friends and relatives. It is all that we have on this planet home.
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On the creation. Yeah. Where were you when you first started on doing these? Because you've come, you've pretty much been a part of the traditional education system. No, I haven't.
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Actually, I have been a victim of that for some time. But I've been very, very lucky to not have to go to any schools till I was some eight and a half or nine. So I did not very Luckily, so have any schools in my little village of five households, Yeah, in a remote village. And while people would think that was a very sad situation, you didn't have a school to go, I feel I was very lucky that I rather than learning about leaves and fruits and shoots from faded pages of textbooks, I was on the farms with neighbors, children and farmers, seeing seeds going to the earth fruits taking off and shoots coming out the leaves unfurling without having to bother with LPF leave and eaves leaves, which makes a child news the very grasp of the magic of nature, In spellings of an alien language, and so on. So I was actually very lucky to be able to learn about things from my mother and the village. And in my own mother time. And when you This is a luxury children don't get you know, they spend their time LEFNEV is in English, and lose the the soul a sense of things. So I was very lucky not to be schooled at all, And to be taught in my mother time.
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And then sorry, until I was seven years
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old when I was eight and a half in second.
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grade three. So when you burn too many mother tongue has a magical effect. When you are good at your mother tongue, you can learn other languages, very easy. I see these kids who struggle with English for 15 years of school and college and still tremble when they have to speak few lines in English. Whereas if you're given the confidence of expressing communicating in your own mother tongue, and generally the confidence of being good, You can acquire languages in a matter of months. So I ended up speaking some nine languages and most of them took no longer than six to eight months. important is that a child is given time to be comfortable at who he or she is, and learn in her own language first, and then the languages of the world.
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I think it's become uncool to be good at your own language these days, especially the youngsters I interact with They are
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so right You're so right I see people not only you know do not speak Hindi or other regional languages we might have done is sad, but worse is when they take pride in their broken mother tongue. You know, I see in Delhi, people speaking Hindi as if they were a European. This is the you know, the limit of inferiority complex when you when you feel smaller speaking your own language That is yes. How
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did you feel when? or How are you feeling when you joined school? After having about eight and a half years? Feelings? cultivating or feelings growing as a kid out of place where you were you like a rebel to school and,
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you know, I was very silent and very reflective and so on. And very oppressed in the school. So progress. Yeah, because teachers didn't understand that I came from a different background they expected me to learn as the situation was in Voodoo or Hindi or English. None of these I spoke at that time. And my lack of language, alien language was taken as something like retarded minus or some, you know, stupidity on my part. And because of that, they would treat me like an untouchable. Yeah, like a wallflower. So Let me tell you, I spent more time on the back bench on top of the bench or outside the classroom, Then in front of the teacher, and I would wonder what if I am weak? How does it help to send me outside the door would I learn more than in front of the teacher but today I laugh and laugh and say that was the only way I could be called an outstanding student.
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I totally connect with you most of my school has been very similar Adams, I was been given a special seat. Tucked away in the corners, I would not make a lot of noise, as in Canada, and I'd be kicked out of the class.
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But it is what children are gifted with, you know, energy to make go out there and jump around. This is nature's software for learning. And we strip the children of all these things and make them into robots that stay silent Pick drops it That's not what education is about.
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I love the way
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When did you come out of that show? Cuz you were aloof, you were in your show That was pushed
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into that said, I wasn't when I was in the field in my mother's lap. Then with my grandparents, I was very Jubilee bubbling with energy, but school stripped me to almost like a dead piece. Yeah.
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But children are very good at learning. So you catch up. So I started catching up very soon,
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started learning the language understanding and then picked up the science. And then I started doing quite well with others. Somehow, despite the school, rather than the cause of the school, I would say yes, and then I started wondering how what I learned could be used. So I'd always make some practical things, even if the teachers didn't have either making contractions out of the science chapters and so on. So I started liking them. And I started liking, debates and poetry and so on. So I was quite in the flow and beyond. by eight or nine standard, thanks to some very good teachers, I met some very, very good teachers, I met some very bad teachers who made my life. And as I said, I was made to stand outside the class and so on. And then there was a time when I ran away from that other school, got into a very humble government school, where the teachers were next to enlightened, they were so loving, they were so supportive of everything I did better than yesterday, you know, more than better than the other kid. Better than what I did yesterday, they were supportive. And soon I started flowering and I was very good at public speaking, I was very good at poetry, Almost everything. So I saw this personally what a teacher can do to a child. And that's perhaps was one of the things that triggered my interest in how education happens, how teachers influence children, how learning happens, or does not.
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We'll definitely talk about it today,
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What is it that when you
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know, one of the causes of stress according the new terms are just inserted is not because
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you have a minute.
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This is where all our speakers and
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like, you see the grind of Planet?
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Rock. So what do you want from video? Please?
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Do you think revolution is
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recently to
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to the economy, this is mentioned,
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media.
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This is being addressed. You're already the
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issue about the organization, it's already being addressed.
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To the US goes into
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So the understanding that you are going through that process
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and how to
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do that kind of a you know, that was Imagine a particular example when we did
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it with immediate failure.
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Student kind of re Are you
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acquainted with me and the students?
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Are you good to go? Perfect.
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We have about eight minutes.
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Where Did we leave it? I lost the track
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of how I started flowering land that teachers
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make a difference. Do you remember? Or is there any moment that you keep reflecting back to with your teacher or your mentors or gurus that you've had in those early years in this new school?
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Yes, not very often. But whenever I'm reflecting on, you know, what's working, what's not, I do go back to what worked on me and what didn't, I do very gratefully Remember the teachers who helped me almost, you know, come out of suicidal thoughts. So there was a time when I was as a 12 year old down and depressed. And thanks to these teachers who were very understanding very supportive, I became very outgoing and confident and started doing things so I was a victim of the system. And then good teachers can do so much to your child in problem solver,
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Do remember, in a way they were a lifesaver. Something It's so refreshing to hear teachers and and institutions like these in this day and age. I think booming is definitely one among them. Now that I've been exploring them,
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What advice do you have for students who are in booming right now?
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Because they have come there right now,
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In a scenario where they are way different from other students, who are around them In the conventional streams, What advice do you have for them, because you have seen both sides.
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So, I think whenever
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a group of people do things differently from the masses, which may not be working, but because it is masses, They hold a sort of command. But when new small things start, Often people don't have confidence or are doubtful and so on. But then only such small ideas grow bigger and become tomorrow's mainstream or today starts as an alternative. So I think boobies courses and the idea and the concept is very beautiful and pathbreaking. For a time when it is rare to find the same time same Rarity may sometimes make one wonder, am I doing the right thing? Or the parents wonder, am I doing the right thing sending my child there, because it has become very commercial today, you know, what do I get from this what job what money. But life is not about money or jobs. These are means towards a happy life. And when such means don't work. Happiness can come from anything happiness can come from a better understanding of the world, it can come from empathy that you develop for other people and nature. So I think enrichment of our lives can happen from all such understandings, deeper understanding of the world and the life and so on. And that kind of enrichment is what I think will schools like to me or rz provide, it may not immediately provide them, like high paying jobs. But high paying jobs, the pay alone doesn't make you happy, more fulfilling lives where you can be of some value to others, And that may not need money, and so on. So I would say we have to be more valuing of such initiatives, even if in the early years, many people won't understand this and make the most and have a enriched happy life from what we make out of this kind of education
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ratio. I think if you look at the cycle, which you learn from your mom, and the very early age, There's a very positive self serving cycle in institutions like booming,
27:02
Asking, quickly jumping to climate change, Because I The second question you asked,
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What are the misconceptions that you come across when people talk climate change? And do you think the situation is as worse as it's being portrayed? Or is it even more terrible?
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So Yes, I think it is very bad. I think the situation is very bad, as explained by many scientists how, if we continue, then there might be a point where we run into the run away climate change, where it would be very difficult to stop, they're not the door of reverse. It is dire. But for those who are doubtful, I would say it's better to be prepared, It's better to give the benefit of doubt and be ready with good actions, then to be proven wrong, and then you fall in your nowhere. So even if you are doubtful, taking precautions doesn't hurt. And If you are clear, then all the better that we take precautions and change our ways. So that's what I say. And what was your other question about climate change views? You lost something first?
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The first one, I bought the misconception? Oh, yeah.
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misconceptions. Yes.
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The misconception that worries me is that people seem to think of solving the problem with more of the same. So they think of replacing,
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For example,
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fossil fuel cars, with electric cars. And that alone is enough. I think we have to change our overall approach to life, I have to say, I think we should derive happiness from simpler lives. Not just replacing everything within an alternative solar power. To to learn to control your desires, is a better and easier way to deal with it. I, I very much, am inspired by what Buddha said in this. He said that for a human being, It's a greater achievement, to conquer a single desire than to fulfill 1000. So rather than fulfilling 1000 desires, If not with fossil fuel island with solar energy, desires are still desires, you're still chasing after desires, How about uprooting some of those desires, and then you don't need your fossil fuel. You don't even need your solar panels, you can live happily with conquering desires. So poor is not someone who doesn't have money, no worries, Someone who keeps wanting more and more. So If you do not need more, you're rich at no money.
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And that's what I have one question,
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When I want you to include
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about how you are attempting to bring about this movement, and you're launching it on October 2, I think that's very relevant for a lot of students. And I think they got to participate in that You got to have a word about it, please. OK.
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So the world today needs personal behavior change,
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At the same time as collective action, and noise. But It should start with personal behavior change. You know, it's good to join campaigns movements, but also the need to change personally. And therefore, what we are planning is to have a platform where people around the world pledge and celebrate pledges to bring changes in themselves. And if we take care of ourselves, then the world takes care of itself, It each individual takes care of so we saying that we have been using crowdfunding a lot. And I think it's a beautiful way of getting everybody engaged in an issue More than the money, which is the output of a crowdfunding campaign. I'm more impressed with the byproduct More than the product, which is engagement, awareness, involvement, and so on. So we are hoping to launch a crowdsourcing off Goodness, crowdsourcing of pledges to do good to the planet, Not necessarily contribute money, which is how things go. And that's when you have, you know, problems with whether it is credible, honest, and so on, We are going to launch a campaign where you can go to a site and pledge behavior change. So you pledge to say, go vegetarian, or half the amount of meat you eat. Now, you know, meat is a very brown substance that adds to climate change in big leaguers. So anyone who goes vegetarian or half vegetarian makes a huge contribution. So you press a tab and say, I do this, and it will say, You're making a contribution worth $10,000, which is huge and real.
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Or you could say, I will never use escalators and lifts and use the steps stay fit, and keep the planet fit. And the site will say, if you do that for the whole year, that will be $5,000 worth of contribution, you say I'll plant 10,000 trees or 100 teeth, it will say you're making so much contribution. Likewise, people around the world will go on this site and pledge and then keep up to those pledges. And This will run into trillions of dollars of contribution. Now, these will be easy, because there is no real exchange of money. So no issues of credibility and such yet it will be fear, the overall effect on the planet will be that many trillion dollars of hell to the sustenance of the planet. So a campaign like this, that encourages people towards action. Yet at the same time, only individual action is not good enough. So it will also have How will you engage with community action, Join the Eco Club in your locality or join the Fridays for future. And that could be a huge contribution of say $20,000. So we value it and put it and thereby you feed you have made so much contribution to the planet and you celebrate with others will do the same. It could be a huge, you know movement, where people pledge and keep to that. And as New Year's are for resolutions, we want to put a more systematic organizing of resolutions from around the world. And now, this is mainly because we in LA when we make artificial glaciers or solar heated houses, We feel very good. But very soon we think that us doing this in some remote corner of the mountains doesn't really solve the problem. Unless people at large in these big cities change their behavior. Climate change will continue and will be just making dishes and you know solar houses and quick that song Yes, the week fix and not dead lasting solution. So this is to say to the world, that we bet that if you please live simply in the cities, we in the mountains may simply live. So living simply is what is the call of the day, Living simply. And that's something that Gandhi said, you know, decades ago, live simply so others simply live. And we are hoping to launch this pre campaign campaign to look for partners. Look for partners who can help us develop websites who can help us evaluate individual actions and behaviors that account for how much support to the environment or develop apps. For example, those who are good at developing apps can develop apps, which will remind them of their pledges, how the pledges are going. For example, I remember, there was this game, which became very notorious the blue whale challenge. Now, this is thought of as a very nasty gayness, well, you could have a positive blue whale where at every step, you do something better to help the earth, you gain higher and higher, and kids could play a game of being champions of the planet. So some game developer can join this movement and develop a game around pledges for the planet, how to help teenagers, you know, keep their pledges and help others and become equal heroes or warriors and, you know, get the same fun out of doing positive things for the planet, things like that. And I call upon all young people are Whoever organizations institutions to join such a movement that starts out of India On second October to source partners. But then on say, first December or so goes global, to get all countries participate in changing their behaviors, we can't only promote, just protest and shout, we have to add all this. And that's the idea of this. I live simply movement, which we hope to start in December so that it coincides with the new year resolutions.
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Wonderful. All the links regarding this campaign are designed to show this clip. All the links regarding this campaign are listed in the show descriptions do have a look. And I would highly recommend each and every one of you to chime in and become an eco warrior in any small way that you can as a start. Yeah.
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I don't have the message.
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But like there was it was, there was there was a lot of struggle.
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So one of the statements and our the moment
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that all the
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Doritos cats
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where the failures are a part of every mission failures are lessons we learn and failures are our
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course if you call it
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a child learns to walk Only after failing 1000 times and falling from flying, right. So we take it as a part of it. We have, on an average, maybe seven or eight failures for every success. Yeah, So there have been many, and we don't think of them as something negative. They are the stepping stones on which you then move forward and learn failures or mistakes or a problem when you make them to ice. When they are because of your carelessness or your laziness then it is a problem failure because of attempting is the biggest thing you can sell you because if you don't attempt you will never fail in order to there's a beautiful couplet which says give 10 handshakes our Madonna john Manchester bar is a night on horse. But only those who are nine some horse fall in the battlefield would deflect the rage of good non capability and literally kill a baby who is a toddler will never fall for will those who attempt something. So
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that's a wrap because we already live by
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Yeah, just take a quick picture.