Schools switch lights off during breaks to save electricity
Zhanna Charviak, a deputy headmaster in charge of education at the Minsk-based school No 108, told the European Radio for Belarus that in order to fulfill the president’s order, the lights are routinely turned off during breaks. The ordinary bulbs have already been replaced with the power-saving ones.
Zhanna Charviak: “Every day, we have a grade on duty. As soon as the bell rings, pupils on duty take 1-2 minutes to walk around every floor and turn the lights on. After the bell rings for a break, those pupils simply walk into a classroom and switch the lights off for the time of the break.
In addition, pupils are taught a special course on power saving. Children write compositions on energy saving and resolve puzzles on this topic. According to Zhanna Charviak, schoolchildren write their essays at home together with their parents. The most recent composition for pupils at Grade 4 was titled “How The Mother Got Surprised”.
“I gave them the beginning of the story. As homework, they were required to sit together with their dads and moms and finish the composition. For example, there was a family: a mother, a father and their daughter Masha. They would forget turn off the water taps or close a window leaf. Once upon a time, a gnome named Kuzya appeared in their apartment. He would turn the lights off, close the window and water taps. The mother went to pay the utilities bill and was very surprised. Why did she get surprised?” Zhanna Charviak narrates.
In the kindergarten No 75, the management even introduced a new job: day-time guard. Director Ryta Unukava says that apart from guarding, this worker is also responsible for turning off the lights after everyone who forgot to do so. Apart from that, parents contributed their own money in order to replace the ordinary bulbs with the energy-saving ones. Two boxes of bulbs were also provided by the local education department. Nobody has made calculations in order to evaluate the energy efficiency, but Ryta Unukava is confident that her institution has fulfilled the president’s decree.
A worker with one of the Minsk libraries told the European Radio for Belarus she thinks the directive No 3 is an absurdity. How can power be saved in a library where people come to read books?
Librarian: “My personal point of view is energy saving doesn’t work for libraries. Children come to read. The winter was terrible with fog, darkness during the whole day. We always had to turn the lights on. I would not wish my children to sit in darkness”.
She confessed to our radio that sometimes the situation can become absurd. Customers are not allowed to bring their mobile phones in the reading hall. They are thus prevented from charging the phones from the library’s sockets. Visitors do not get outraged that there is little light in the library sometimes. They quietly stand up and turn the lights on themselves. The librarians will then recall the president’s directive and switch the light off.
“We monitor the number of people and try to get them seated in one row and then turn on the lights. When there are few visitors, we try to seat them closer to windows. In this case, we keep the light off.
Nevertheless, the city library failed to fulfill the president’s decree No 3. The staff had to pay their own money for that.
