#secmol

The real Phunsukh Wangdu

Meet Sonam Wangchuk, the 2018 Ramon Magsaysay award winning educator and innovator, who was the inspiration behind Amir Khan's character Phunsukh Wangdu in Raju Hirani's movie 3 Idiots. This is how he looks like in real life.

He hails from Ladakh, a land in India most Indians barely know about. He is a mechanical engineer from National Institute of Technology, Srinagar.

In 1988, he founded SECMOL - Students' Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh - with the 'simple' aim of reforming the educational system of Ladakh.

His problem statement was - only 5% students of Ladakh passed the 10th matriculation exam, primarily because textbooks were in Urdu and English and content was something the Ladhaki kids didn't relate to, like ships, elephants and mango trees!

So, he launched Operation New Hope (ONH), a collaboration between govt, village communities and civil society. His jazz must have worked. Today 75% of students pass 10th exams and go on for higher education, majorly outside Ladakh.

The remaining 25% stay back and create magic!

They join the SECMOL alternative school campus, another school near Leh, where only failed students are accepted. Here, they learn innovation.

Sonam and the students have built the solar heated school building - low cost, made of mud/earth, where the temperature is about +15 degrees when it is -15 degrees outside.

Sonam's Ice Stupas are unbelievably amazing. They are artificial glaciers, used for storing winter water (which otherwise would go unused) in the form of conical shaped ice heaps. During summer, when water is scarce, the Ice Stupa melts to increase water supply for crops.

In 2016, Sonam was awarded the Rolex Award for Enterprise for this innovation.

Sonam Wangchuk, educator and innovator par-excellence, didn't go to school till he was nine. There was no school in his village Alchi. His mother taught him all she knew in Ladhaki. I think what's written below is in Ladhaki - I hope so.

You have just got to read more about SECMOL. Click here. BTW, you can also read about how in 2007, while the world was felicitating Sonam, the local Deputy Commissioner created some trouble for him, and how a Hong Kong based NGO wrote to the Indian government and got the DC transferred. As tales go, this is fairy stuff.

FUNDRAISING FOR INDIAN NATIONAL WOMEN'S ICE HOCKEY TEAM

This is a short documentary we have prepared to facilitate our efforts to raise funds to help the Indian national team reach Taipei to participate in the Asia Challenge cup starting March 26th, 2016.

FUNDRAISING FOR INDIAN NATIONAL WOMEN'S ICE HOCKEY TEAM

On the frozen ice lakes of Ladakh – at an altitude of 11,000 feet where temperatures drop as low as minus 20 degree Celsius — there is a group of women who are gearing up to represent India in an international ice hockey tournament.

The team, consisting of women from Ladakh, is the first ever Indian National Women’s Ice Hockey team that has been assembled to represent the country at the IIHF Ice Hockey Challenge Cup of Asia, 2016, to be held in Chinese Taipei this March. 

Lacking even an arena to practice in, they must wait until winter when the lakes freeze over. Donations will go towards setting up training camps for kids, buying expensive hockey equipment, bringing in professional coaches and, perhaps most important, building an all-season ice/roller combination rink at SECMOL Campus. 

On a learning expedition to Leh, the capital of Ladakh in the remote mountainous region of the J&K, a kid asked one of the participants

"how much water is needed to make a cup of tea"

hmm... well may be 8/10th after some scratching of head replies Akansha. 

Wrong answer Didi ( sister), it takes 27 cups of water to make one cup of tea. You need water to grow tea leaves, then sugar cane takes quite a bit of water, cow also drinks water before giving milk etc etc. Now you add all that up and it comes to 27 cups of water.

Ohh... a new insight to foot print of seemingly innocuous things like " cup of tea"