red·carpet·green·dress

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Jake Sully: [as he pleads for Eywa's help in attacking the Sky People] See the world where we come from: there's no green there. They've killed their mother, and they're going to do the same thing here.

While her husband James Cameron promotes understanding other cultures and saving the planet before it's too late in the mesmerizing "Avatar," Suzy Amis Cameron is advocating for global connections and ecology too. At MUSE Elementary School in Topanga, California that she founded with her sister Rebecca, kids get hands-on learning (following the Italian Reggio model, which respects children most of all) about many essential things - including respecting the earth. They do regular beach clean-up, raise and eat organic food, use non-toxic cleaning products, and in other ways model a sustainable lifestyle.

When "Avatar" was nominated for many awards including Best Picture, Suzy came up with a contest idea based on this theme: "Caring for the planet is always in fashion." Why not give designers a chance to design her dress for the red carpet at the Academy Awards and bring attention to the idea of designing a beautiful garment in a way that is kind to the earth, and be a fund raiser for kids to go to her school who wouldn't otherwise afford it? So she put the challenge out there to designers around the world for a dress created from organic or recycled materials, or raised in sustainable ways. Here is her video pitch. You might recognize her as a former Ford model and actress (in movies such as "Fandango" with Kevin Costner; postscript: thanks, Susie, for commenting that Suzy met Cameron on the set of "Titanic" in which she played Rose's granddaughter).

I wouldn't have known about this dress design contest if I hadn't noticed it when I opened my university's home page at work Thursday. It was there because the winner is Apparel & Textile Design senior Jillian Granz at Michigan State! This is from the press release:

When submitting her design, Granz recommended the dress be made from peace silk, which allows silk worms to complete their life cycle, rather than be boiled, as is the case with traditional silk. Granz also recommended a no-waste pattern, in which every part of the pattern is utilized and put into the final garment rather than being discarded.

She designed it in her special topics class: Innovative Approaches in Apparel Design, and submitted her entry along with 15 other classmates. Here is Jillian Granz on the phone when Suzy Amis Cameron called her with the news. They'll fly Jillian out for fittings with Suzy and the dressmaker, Academy Award-winning costume designer Deborah Scott (designed for "Avatar" but wasn't nominated for an Oscar this time), and then for a pre-Oscar party March 3 (the Academy Awards are March 7) where they'll unveil the dress. Imagine having your design career launched while you're still an undergraduate, wow. She must feel like the Queen of the World!

Michigan State University is an agricultural school and prides itself on being "green" with a great recycling program. Even our school colors are Green & White, and the name for its Reduce, Reuse, Recycle program is Be Spartan Green. Unfortunately MSU is also infamous for its tight relationship with Monsanto, developing genetically modified (GM) seeds for that company, which makes many of us angry. I hope our Green & White school will evolve into being more famous for sustainable practices, like this green fashion statement. After the reveal March 3, I'll try to remember to post a photo of Jillian's dress. I wonder what color it is?

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"They've messed with the wrong one now!"

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To read more about the Montgomery Bus Boycott, go here.
To read more about Rosa Parks, go here, or read her autobiography, Rosa Parks, My Story.
To see the story of the restoration of the bus, go here.
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Barefoot College

photos from BBC photographic gallery and Barefoot College's web site

You might think a person has to be able to read to go to college. You might assume students need to understand the language of the teacher, or of fellow students, to succeed in school. You might envision that children who herd cattle by day would be too tired to learn how to build water pumps at night. You might just think that a woman who didn't finish primary school could not possibly become an engineer in six months, or teach someone else to become one, and you might be wrong.

When Don and I watched a piece about India's Barefoot College on the PBS Lehrer Report the other night, we sat dumbstruck. (Please, if you have 9 minutes, click on "a piece" in the previous sentence and watch the streaming video.) Maybe you've already heard about it. All notions about illiteracy and education are turned on their head in the 20 Barefoot College field centres around India started by Sanjit "Bunker" Roy.

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Bunker Roy himself was born in what is now West Bengal and schooled at Doon School and St. Stephen's College in Delhi. He has won several awards for Barefoot College, including the Schwab (for social entrepeneurship) and the St. Andrew's Prize (Britain's largest prize for the environment).

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photo of Bunker Roy, right, from Unesco site

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He was influenced by Gandhi's philosophy of sustainable development. Roy said:

There is a mistaken belief that illiteracy is a barrier to the rural poor developing themselves with skills of their own. In other words a rural poor farmer, weaver, potter, leather worker, blacksmith and other artisans, because they have never been through a formal education system are not capable of producing high quality products with a marvelous eye for aesthetics and form. In the rural areas of India today, for instance, there are endless examples of rainwater harvesting structures for drinking water and sanitation still being used today that are hundreds of years old - constructed when there were no architects and engineers.

Bunker Roy started the first Barefoot College in Tilonia, Rajasthan, in 1972 after the 1966-67 famine killed thousands in Bihar state. Since then his colleges have trained villagers without paper qualifications to install and maintain solar electrical systems, hand pumps and tanks for drinking water. I could not believe my eyes as I watched village women work on intricate solar panels, taking meticulous detailed notes to study the codes and tiny parts, simply by watching their teacher do it and communicate with hand gestures.

Barefoot solar engineers have installed solar photovoltaic (SPV) home lighting systems and fabricated produced solar lanterns across 10 states of India. The results include:

• Solar electrifying 870 schools across the country.
• 3530 solar lanterns manufactured at the College.
• 28 remote and inaccessible villages in Ladakh have 40 Kws of solar panels that provide three hours of light in the bleakest winter to 1530 families.
• In Leh and Kargil districts, solar energy initiatives have saved a total of 97,000 litres of kerosene.
• 392 rural youth including women trained as barefoot solar engineers with absolutely no aid from urban professionals.
• 350 villages and hamlets(clusters) have been covered where a total number of 12000 households have been solar electrified.
• 195,000 litres of kersoene saved, by replacing generators and oil lanterns with solar power.
• All solar panels have been installed, maintained and repaired by the village people without the assistance of any paper qualified engineer.

The college has also instigated vibrant health care centers administering biochemic medicines (developed out of, but different from, homeopathy):

Since 1986, the Barefoot College has been using biochemic medicines. Many village men and women, most of whom have just a primary education, have been trained to administer biochemic medicines. This is fairly easy and does not need advanced academic qualifications. And since biochemic medicines have no side effects, these medicines are also quite safe.

in Tilonia, it is the children’s parliament, an elected body of girls and boys between 10 and 14 years of age that is responsible for making sure that schools are run properly—an ingenious way of giving children a hold on their own lives—and that of their villages.

Women have been empowered to participate in the local economy and infrastructure, and to lead other women.

Women are very active in the college. Here women gather in a village square to raise their voices in protest against cases of rape. Girls heavily outnumber boys in the night schools and many of the engineers trained in the college are women. One of the most successful solar lamps in use in villages in the area was designed by a woman using local material going to waste. Women have been going from village to village to gather support for developmental measures such as building local dams.

I am deeply impressed with Roy and his vision for helping people help themselves, including setting up rain water harvesting systems in many Indian villages. But I am flabergasted - and humbled - by the women, children and men themselves who learn and build the mechanics of these and solar electrical systems, and serve each other in order to strengthen themselves, their families, their communities - and the environment!

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