Breakthrough in water purification

My colleague Jens Ole pointed me to this interesting piece of information.

A Danish company is developing a new technique that finally will make water desalination economical viable. By use of nano technology and proteins called Aquaporins the desalination process will be 5 to 10 times more efficient. Basically, the nano membrane and the Aquaporins makes sure that dirty or salty water is filtered into 100% pure and clean water.

What is really cool about this in a Jordanian perspective is that this process can be gravity driven – like in taking the water from 200 m above sea-level to 400 m below – eg. the Red-Dead project. That might save Jordan a couple of nuclear reactors along the canal

More about the concept can be found here.

LEGO Charity Donation to Jordan part II

One of the important events at the Danish embassy this year is the LEGO Charity Donation to Jordan as has been reflected in the Jordanian media (article and photo). LEGO is a world renowned toy and educational tool that many, many children all over the world use every day. Many of you have probably been brought up with LEGO. Unfortunately this is not the case for a lot of children from less privileged families. LEGO has an ambition to reach out to those kids and this is why the embassy together with LEGO has organized a huge donation of LEGO building blocks (12.500 kg) to Jordan. More about that in my speech.

The last two days we have conducted a number of workshops for teachers, community centre leaders, caretakers and charity workers on how to make children benefit the most from the donation. The workshops were interesting, intense and – I think - a great success – some of the advice given would help make Jordan a more creative society. To watch a group of Madrasati teachers going crazy in excitement and the impossible task of the workshop trainer to get the teacher to sit down and listen (like the teachers themselves orders every day in their classes) was simply hilarious. Just have a look at the pictures below.

Soon, I expect to do a more elaborate article on the idea behind the donation.

LEGO Charity Donation to Jordan part I

 

PRESS – check against delivery

Remarks by the Danish Ambassador at the LEGO Donation to Jordan

launch event

the 24. March 2009 at The Children’s Museum.

 

Greetings.

Let me start out with thanking the Children’s Museum for hosting this two day event. It was obvious to approach The Children’s Museum for the simple reason that this donation is targeting children and learning institutions at the same time – as the Children’s Museum do every day.

Tuesdays being the Museums weekly closing day we will not have the joy of hundreds of children playing around at the museum. But hopefully the Museum will experience grow-ups playing in this room today.

The Danish embassy is particularly happy to be part of this large scale LEGO donation to Jordan. The purpose is first and foremost to provide a number of less privileged children with toys and educational tools that they can enjoy in the same way as many Danish children do.

That LEGO is much more than just a toy has become even more obvious to me during the last months planning for this event. Many of us have read or heard about the robotics competition that is taking place in Jordan annually and some might have noticed that it is organized by LEGO.

I personally had no idea that the LEGO system is a learning tool to be used in schools as part of the curriculum. It is evident that the building bricks challenge the imagination of a child and thus enhances the creativity in play but when you think about it – they actually also opens up a room for thinking about alternative solutions, questioning the traditional – or conventional – way of solving problems.

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Allow me to be a little bit political. Denmark and Jordan are two very similar countries. Apart from both being kingdoms, both are small in size and limited in population – roughly 5.5 million citizens in each country. We have only one single substantial resource – human intelligence. As a country – as a national economy – we are forced to rely on the ability of our fellow citizens to invent, to improve and innovate systems, procedures and services and to create an economy and a country that is based on ingenuity and creativity.

The latest buzzword in my country is “creative economy” – to become a country where you discover new or alternative solutions to problems and challenges, and where creativity is encouraged.

All countries are facing this challenge but for the small resource lacking countries – there is no choice. We have to build our future on the creativity of our children. Denmark is moving slowly but surely towards this goal.

I will not go as far as to say that our focus on creativity is due to Danish children growing up with LEGO, but the philosophy behind – letting imagination and creativity free, seeking your own answers – is definitely something that has been taken up by our educational system. The same can be true in Jordan. Her Majesty’s Madrasati initiative – one of our partners – focuses not alone on the physical renovation of schools but also on creating a better learning environment with more focus on creativity and exploration.

Transforming Jordan into a creative economy is one of the formidable tasks that need to be taken up by us and our children.

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Today marks the launch of the LEGO donation to Jordan under the patronage of Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah and with the title “The Building Blocks of our Children’s future”. The donation consists of two large containers with LEGO and DUPLO bricks and toys. It is 1000 boxes of the size you can see in this hall. The pile of blocks in front of you is roughly half a box. So it is a LOT of LEGO. In kilos we are talking about 12 till 13 thousand kilos.

The next step is to distribute these boxes all around Jordan. For that purpose, the embassy have partnered with a number of institutions running facilities for less privileged children. As the donation is purely charity based, only non-commercial community based or governmental institutions have been eligible.

Many of you present today are representatives of institutions that have accepted to receive a LEGO donation. We at the embassy are working on finalising the list of recipient institutions and within the coming weeks we will start distributing the boxes.

We expect the distribution to take place during the next three months. From the embassy it is our ambition to participate in as many visits to the receiving institutions outside Amman as possible. It will be a good opportunity to get to know Jordan a little better and hopefully to collect a smile from the faces of the children that we meet.

In order to make the LEGO donation more sustainable LEGO have arranged three workshops at the Children’s museum for special invited supervisors, caretakers, teachers and community leaders from schools, learning centres, orphanages, community centres, hospitals, nurseries and so forth.

During the workshops the participants will discover how to benefit the most from the building blocks both as a toy and as an educational tool and how they can help increase the ability of the child. Hopefully many children will play with the bricks so it is good to know that the bricks can be washed.

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There are a lot of people I would like to thank on this occasion.

First of all, my thank goes to LEGO Charity without whom this event and donation literally speaking would not have taken place. Danish LEGO-volunteers have been instrumental in making this donation possible and they definitely deserve our gratitude. I have promised that they will receive some photos of excited children unpacking the boxes.

As I mentioned earlier The Children’s Museum generously hosts us today and tomorrow for the workshops, but they have also provided us with contacts and helped with practical issues that we otherwise would have had difficulty in managing. Thank you once again.

Our two main partners Madrasati and UNRWA have been very helpful in organising the two dedicated workshops for their staff and we will continue our cooperation when the distribution begins.

The Ministry of Social Development with H.E. Hala Lattouf as a keen supporter, the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health and the Greater Amman Municipality have each within their respective fields provided us with necessary information for planning the donation and allocation of the LEGO boxes.

I would like to say particularly thank you to Save the Children Denmark national coordinator Raghda Qandour and the Zaha Children’s Cultural Centre, general manager Rania Subieh and her close collaborator Hadeel Al-Oran for having spend numerous hours collecting, compiling, mapping and contacting the many institutions and NGO’s that runs facilities for children. Getting information about the number of children attending each institution and breakdown into age groups have been a burdensome task, but probably also created new knowledge that others might be able to exploit.

I also wish to show my appreciation for the embassy staff that all have been doing overtime and shown great flexibility in organizing this event. 

And finally a great thank you to the volunteers that will help distributing the LEGO boxes. The embassy will get back to you with the practical details in the near future and I hope this will be as beneficial to you personally as it has been for us at the embassy. The smile from a child is invaluable.

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King Abdullah Park

A Danish landscape architect Jeppe Aagaard Andersen has been selected to design the new King Abdullah Park. The park is going to serve primarily the inhabitants of East Amman as a recreational and green space.

Jordan Times says:

“…Also yesterday, the Monarch laid the foundation stone of the multimillion-dinar King Abdullah Park, which is expected to serve one million residents of Muqablain and the surrounding areas, providing inhabitants of east Amman with breathing space.

Designed by the office of Danish landscape architect Jeppe Aagard Andersen, the project will include sports fields, IT and social services centres, in addition to pedestrian paths and restaurants.

Construction work on the 505-dunum park has already started, with the first phase of the project expected to be ready by mid-2009, and the rest scheduled for completion in 2011.

The park is part of the ambitious master plan, which focuses on upgrading infrastructure and services in areas recently added to the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM)…”

Jeppe has been working on this project for some time and I want to congratulate him and Amman for this project. I think it will be truly innovative and give people a new experience in the way of creating a public recreational area with the use of high-tech. From the plans and sketches I have seen this has the potential of becoming a landmark in Amman. But its success of course depends on its daily users and their desire to exploit the park to the maximum while keeping it nice, clean and presentable. I will look forward to take the whole family biking in the Park.