Geography students raise money for Wells for India

First year Geography students have been raising money for Wells for India.  The charity works with the poorest dryland communities in India, helping to secure access to safe water.

Senior Lecturer Dr Kevin Cook is a Trustee of the charity.  Kevin introduced the students to the work of the charity, and showed how charity's projects align with topics covered in class.

Caroline, Asifa, Georgia and Sarah looked after the stall in the morning.
Others helped out later in the day.

To raise money for the charity, the students ran a chocolate stall and an Easter egg raffle.

Staff, students and visitors to the library were given chocolate in return for a donation to the charity.

Third year Geographers learn about food waste

Third year Urban Geography students have been reflecting on their personal food waste. This relates to academic work carried out under the theme of Food and the City. Before visiting Elsie’s Café – Northampton’s RealJunk Food Project, Mr. Andy Fox, a volunteer at Elsie’s, visited the group and gave a talk on how the project works, and why it came into being. Then, the students visited the café on Charles St where they had the opportunity to sample the food and find out more about where the food comes from.

Students at Elsie's Café

 

Elsie’s Café is one of a network of over 150 such projects worldwide. Surplus, out of date food, items passed their sell by date, items in broken packaging etc. are donated from a variety of sources including supermarkets, restaurants, shops and allotments. Diners pay what they feel (#PAYF) is appropriate for their meal, money which finances the running of the kitchen and the café itself. There are now over 100 volunteers involved and the café is so busy now that they are looking for more volunteers to fill specific posts such as café manager/organiser. The project instigator Shena Cooper is looking forward to developing further links with the University. A big thank you to Elsie’s café for a very warm welcome and for sharing food and drinks with us – we’ll be back!

For further details see:

http://www.elsiescaftrjfp.org.uk/

http://therealjunkfoodproject.org

twitter: @elsie_caf

If you would like to get involved see:

contact@elsiescaftrjfp.org.uk

Research on water and energy issues in Brazil

John Horton has been awarded two ESRC grants to develop interdisciplinary research collaborations between UK-based Social Scientists and Brazilian Engineering Scientists. The projects will focus on children and young people’s everyday experiences of water and energy issues in São Paulo State.

Meeting community groups

Visiting one of the field sites

To launch this two-year programme of work, John travelled with the project’s Principal Investigator (Prof Peter Kraftl, University of Birmingham) to visit São Paulo state during January.

The trip involved a range of presentations, impact workshops, community visits, and fascinating fieldtrips to key sites relating to water and energy issues in the region. More information will follow in future blog posts.