IMU Eco Friends Club Promotes Eco-Friendliness at Chariofare 2015

19 September 2015 – The IMU Eco Friends Club participated in the International Medical University (IMU)’s Chariofare by organising the IMU Eco-Friendly International Fashion Show and the Rubbish Separation Programme. The Rubbish Separation Programme was conducted throughout the day, at the waste collection booths of Eco Friends Club located at the two ends of the driveway. The main objective of the programme was to keep IMU as an eco-friendly campus despite the large number of stalls that would inevitably generate a lot of waste including polystyrene and plastic bags. The waste collection booths had separate enormous packs for organic waste, plastic, polystyrene, cans and paper. People at the Chariofare were asked to bring the waste they generated to the collection booths to be sorted, rather than dumping them in the trash. Eco Friends Club volunteers also walked around the stalls once every hour, collecting the waste generated by the stalls. As expected, a lot of waste was generated during the day, with the final tally being 2 enormous packs of organic waste, 3 packs of plastic, 1 pack of polystyrene, 1 pack of cans, 1 pack of paper and lots of boxes. These packs were labelled separately and left at the Garbage Room in the Green Zone.

Eco Friends Club would like to thank all the participants of the Chariofare for their support and cooperation in carrying out the Rubbish Separation Programme successfully, for their compliments on the efforts of the committee and for encouraging the committee to carry out such programmes in the future too.

The second contribution of the Eco Friends Club to the Chariofare 2015 was the IMU Eco-Friendly International Fashion Show, which was a fusion of the themes “Recycling” and the Chariofare theme “International”. The main objectives included raising awareness among IMU students regarding the different cultures and traditions of different countries, bringing to spotlight the issues associated with recycling and giving the students a platform to challenge their creativity. On 1 August, Eco Friends Club called for designers to design the dresses for the Fashion Show, which had to be the traditional dresses of the 10 countries, made from recycled materials. The 10 countries were the ones with most students in IMU and are as follows: Sri Lanka, Singapore, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria and Australia. Some designers worked with models of their own and the Eco Friends Club provided models for designers who did not have any. The designers and models attended multiple rehearsals on three days (11 September, 18 September and 19 September). The performance was on 19 September 2015, Saturday at 12:45 pm at the Atrium. During the performance, 6 amazing dresses from 4 different countries, designed by 11 different designers, were shown, to loud applause from the audience. In a nutshell, Eco Friends Club members actively took part and worked quite hard during the Chariofare 2015 to promote recycling, reducing waste and waste separation. Eco Friends Club is proud of the involvement of the members in both activities, the waste reduction and separation that went on successfully and the fact that students made people stop and look more closely at waste that can be recycled into wearable art.

Models	Description of the Wearable Art
	SingaporeModel: Tan Sin Yee Designer: Sim Yan Jinn Materials used: Top: White and red plastic bags. Red ribbon with some decorations made from white felt Skirt: Old newspaper Singapore flag: Fabric sewed on newspaper.
	Dhigu Hedhun of MaldivesModel: Valliammai Muthuganesan Designers: Aminath Sofa and Mariyam Sakha Materials used: Collar: Plastic bags Flower in the middle: Recycled paper Base: Old black dress Branches & sleeve decoration: Aluminum foil Petals: Plastic bags, tissue paper, Cup cake wraps in the middle traditional hair piece: Plastic bag Bangles: Cardboard wrapped by pink plastic bags.
	KenyaModel: Sawsan Khandaker Designers: Samira Anwar and Kowthar Hussain Materials used: Dress made from black, green and white plastic bags to represent Kenyan colours. Strap: Pink ribbon
	IndiaModel: Kruti Sri Designers: Naahee Waheed, Shahudha Abdul Rasheed Materials used: Sari: Plastic bag decorated with recycled paper Top: Modified old cloth Skirt: Sprayed plastic bag, decorated with Aluminium foil Bangles: Plastic bottle wrapped by recycled paper
	SingaporeModel: Jasmine Peh Designers: Jasmine Peh, Ramita Kaur Shahi Materials used: Skirt: Two layers made of plastic bags The base of the Singapore flag: Paper plate, with red cloth on top of it. Cardboard cut outs of moons and stars. Plastic fan with tiny Chinese drum
	Libaas of MaldivesModel: Hana Zahir Designers: Aishath Sausan, Eema Rasheed. Materials used: Collar and sleeve decoration: Old shoelaces, aluminum foil. Base of blouse: Old recycled cloth. Bangles: Cut out plastic bottle, rope wrapped around it. The traditional necklace worn with Libaas is called a Fattaru Bai: Plastic bottle and cardboard box cut outs, sprayed with gold paint, tied together by rope. Ring: Paper clip. Skirt, known as a Feyli: Black plastic bag with tape at the bottom to mimic the real Feyli. Pink Rose, the national flower of Maldives: Pink tissue paper, stem: paperclip.