1. Caution! Paper overload!!
Project Paper
These days paper is consumed at a faster rate than it is produced. Did
you know that cutting down trees to make paper is one of the major
causes of global warming? At this rate, in the future, the world will
have no trees and therefore no paper. We heard about the Design for
Change competition through our facilitator Punam Ma‟am and we
decided to try to make a change in the world. Thus, Project Paper was
born.
We met daily to decide on our plan of action. We got some pointers
from the “Design For Change” website as well. We decided on our
project name and who we were aiming to impact. We split the work
among ourselves and decided on how we were going to accomplish the
seemingly-impossible task of creating widespread awareness.
Now came the task of actually implementing our ideas. So we talked to
our principal and vice-principal to get some more valuable inputs on this
project. We got various interesting ideas from them and decided that
we were going to create awareness in three different areas: Our
School, Our Neighborhood and Our Homes. We made colourful posters
on newspapers and hung them up in our school and neighbourood. Next,
we made some paper bags using used paper and newspapers and painted
a re-use message on them – these were then distributed among our
friends, family and neighbours. We also prepared a program for the
school assembly on the theme „Save Paper to Save Our Earth‟. With the

2. help of some friends, we presented it to the school. This program
included a speech and a small skit. We saw immediate effects as the
students now think twice before throwing away unused paper or making
paper planes.
The impact was caused in all of our focal points. At home we now use
the unused side of paper instead of throwing it away. Our message
painted on the paper bags reached many of our friends, family and
neighbours. We created awareness on saving paper in 3
neighbourhoods. Each of us distributed paper bags to 10 neighbours, a
total of 50 houses. We believe that we changed the mindset of our
school including approximately 1000 students, our administration
office, principal, vice-principal and 70 teachers through our skit. Our
posters attracted a lot of praise from our teachers and friends and
made them think about the cause. We proposed a new CCA for paper
recycling and this idea was taken into consideration by our school. The
idea of sending school notifications through email was implemented and
in this way less paper was used, thus helping our world. Recycling bins
were put up for recyclable materials and used paper. We were glad to
see that students used them well.
The „Design for Change‟ contest was a learning experience for all of us.
It has taught us all to save the world for our future generations. By
putting our heads together, we came up with various ideas to reduce
paper consumption. Meeting up often and staying back after school
bonded us all together because we supported a common cause. We
learnt teamwork, and together we came up with a lot more than we
could on our own. The „Design For Change‟ competition made us view the

3. world in a different way. Before, we were ignorant to the fact that our
earth was in grave danger. However, because of this enriching yet fun
venture we turned over a new leaf, but not just us. Our family, friends
and teachers made the change as well. While reminiscing about this
project we remind ourselves that even though we focused only on
saving paper we did what we could and we did it well. We did our part
to save the world and we‟re going to continue.
Have YOU started YOUR journey to save the world?