I am Kohar Garo Varjabedian and i am a Professor at Faculty of Science Cairo University (Egypt) and the director of Environment Communication Center at Cai Uni. For the last few years i have been involved in many environmental activities with the students at my university, spreading awareness about environmental problems and waste management. Recently i have applied for a project to convert the organic waste at the university to biofuel that can be utilized for energy puroses and got the approval to start the project.I am pleased to be with you and share the experience and learn from your insights.i would love to join you on the 25th of April.
Welcome to Edgeryders Kohar 
I’ll be facilitating the physical workshop in Cairo on the 25th, but really it all starts online where we get to know one another;s work a bit. As well as decide together what to zoom in on during the meeting. I wanted to ask you a bit about working with environmental issues and waste management. There’s an older discussion where the topic of waste management in Egypt poped up here.
I wonder do you recognise the description there? And do you know of any other intiatives or research projects that are relevant to discuss and learn from in this context?
Lots of question. but Im really very curious!
… and the other way around!
Welcome, Kohar! Learning goes in all directions, and I am sure we can learn from you too. Has your project started yet?
Waste wise, the more knowledgeable of edgeryders is probably @msanti from Italy; @elf Pavlik from Earth (he does not recognize states, so I don’t attribute him to any of them) was involved in pretty advanced upcycling/recycling activities at the unMonastery; in Spot The Future, but on the Armenian side, @Vahagn is also a devoted upcycler.
a very hot topic indeed
hello kohar
I really want to know the scale of the approved project ? is it just to be in the uni or will it be implemented in some informal areas or experimenting in some different places ?
and what about the Anti-Coal movment are u or any of ur students involved in this ? for the non-Egyptians this movment is against building electric power stations that works with coal that some smart guys in the "decision making " place wants to start building
also there is a group called biogas people - I think they already know about STF , I’ll make sure:) - now they cooperate with GIZ and Icecairo , are they involved somehow in ur project or within the students or they are a separate thing , anyway I think they might add to the discusion
and just a personal comment on the old discussion @Nadia : please don’t try to get something done with the government now it will just get a bad reputation :D:D as there was something about the ambassador of Sweden will discuss cooperation chances with the new ministry …
Finally I just remembered something I thought sharing it her in this post would be appropriate about that guy in elzabaleen (the garabage collectors ) who had the project of biogas containers on roof tops in order to get energy for the hot water needed , there was a report about him I think in Aljazeera I will search for the link , I got the chance actually to meet his wife 2 years ago and asked her about what happened to his project why I wasn’t sacled up she just told me that after making the proposal for the government to get funds and get the project into action , the answer he got from the authoroty figure was " Y DO U GUYS IN EL ZABALEEN NEED HOT WATER FOR ANYWAY ? " and of course nothing has been done , I actually don’t know if there was any further steps done after that or not as the we have seen lots of ministries afterwards but I don’t think so
so what do u think about that story : and what other obstacles do u think face such projects
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Ahahah no it wasn’t me!!
Someone in the community was talking to the ministry of something or the other. I think they realised it was not happening, better bottom up. You know it’s why I always insist we assume that only resources available are what’s in the room and what can we do with this?
I just linked to a comment on the post about waste management (the conversations often start one place then go wherever people want to take them in here
yeah bottom up is much better :D:D
I really like the idea of the resources in the room and waiting to c it happen in the workshop
the link
the report about " hanna rostom " the guy I was talking about , it’s just 8 mins but in arabic
Think you can get in touch with him and invite him along?
Maybe he could tell the story and describe what problems they came across and what worked in the other places that they implemented the solution? Are there othe environmental or safetyy concerns?
If it’s a question of getting a large number of people behind an effort @henri37 knows quite alot about this from organising let’s do it world.
I will give it a go
I will try but I am not sure I can reach him now , I will try to find the NGO that his wife used to work with and may be Ahmed Magdy can visit them . they also used to do some cool stuff but also stopped - 2 years ago don’t know the updates - they had a school where children learn about recycling and other stuff . I was actually there through a construction office to see how much money needed to renew some facilities including the school as Bank EL ta’am was going to fund that , but I doubt that it was completed .
will check and send them invitations as well
Any experiences from India around this?
@biplabkp@rediffmail.com I think this is right up your alley, no?
Experiences from Berlin
Do you know Valentina Karga? She prototyped over two years a self-sufficiency project including biogas production from food/human waste. More can be found here: berlinfarmlab.tumblr.com/‎
Furthermore there are several initiative in collaboration with the technical university: http://www.biogas-network.de/apecs/partner/tu-berlin, http://www.ensys.tu-berlin.de
as well as more experimental projects at Humboldt/Freie University: https://www.interdisciplinary-laboratory.hu-berlin.de/de/basisprojekte/die-anthropozaen-kueche-das-labor-der-verknuepfung-von-haus-und-welt
possible collaboration ?
Do u think cairo university can collaborate with one of these universities in Germany?