ECC-Tzu Chi Partnership: the Energy Super Star Project

14/03/2013

Sustainable Living Project run by ECC and Tzu Chi Foundation formed a partnership to foster community leaders to protect. Now Adrian from Tzu Chi is telling us how beneficial partnership and workshops are to the foundation and are going to be to the CALD communities.

Put your hands up if you’d like to be Energy Super Star!

It was a logical decision. When the Sustainable Living Project presented the opportunity for a partnership with Tzu Chi to co-organize the Energy Star project we had no hesitation stepping on board. I graciously took on the responsibility to be the coordinator to rally Tzu Chi volunteers for our participation.

There are two phases to this project. The first phase is having three 2-hour workshops with very practical sharing of energy saving ideas in our daily life, including the correct way to read and understand our electricity bill, introduction of SAVE POWER Kit to take measurement of our electrical appliances at home. All the knowledge is shared by our ECC content expert and enriched by the vivid discussion of all participants who brought in their personal experience.

I was personally touched in hearing many wonderful ideas shared by the participants which also amazed our ECC instructors. Being all committed Tzu Chi volunteers, we are following the teaching of Master Cheng Yen to appreciate what the nature has for us, be prudent in using the resources, and do our part to protect the Mother Nature. This first phase of project has started to generate the ripple effect from us as small dots to spread the knowledge and translate into action that influence our family members and house mates.

I can still recall some wonderful ideas among many in discouraging long bath time by rationing hot water supply in a form of fixed bucket of water, or setting a hot water supply timer that automatically cut off the tap supply once it exceeds 4 minutes bath time. These shall discourage any over-use of gas or electricity for hot water and drive the user out of the bathroom due to discomfort cold water.

We are all looking forward to the second phase of this project where a select group of volunteers will be further groomed to reach out beyond our families to the community with the learnt skills and create bigger ripples.  We have a mission to learn keenly from ECC Bilingual Educators and do our noble part to serve the community.

By Adrian Tan