Of Cigarette Packs and Elephant Dung

Where can you go to see the following?

(1) Creative photography on cigarette packs.

(2) Innovative co-existence with elephants.

Answer: Sri Lanka.

Last summer, my family and I went on a week-long sojourn to Sri Lanka. That it happened to coincide with the heat wave in Karachi needs further explanation, in case you think I created a respite for myself primarily because I wanted to get away from angry sun gods. Truth be told, I felt guilty that I was vacationing in a tropical environment while the heat-facilitated death toll rose in Karachi…

Anyway, after that trip, there was a strong urge to write about the island. I'm not a travel writer, but after experiencing the ‘wonders of Sri Lanka’, I couldn't stop myself from telling you about that land. Although considered a ‘developing nation’, there were aspects to the country that completely defied that label. As I was visiting from Pakistan, the analogy thus created was insightful.

A runner's tale

"Are you a runner?" I'm often asked. Seldom can I answer that question to anyone's satisfaction. The reason being that I consider myself a brisk walker who sporadically breaks out into a jog. Semantics aside, running has been an evolutionary process for me. Presumably an exercise, it is through running that I have itinerantly observed various cities in the world. Observing a new place through running is really a very different experience from seeing it otherwise. You've got to give it a try to believe what I say.

It was thus by running across the various terrains in Sri Lanka that I chose to observe the beauty of that land. From sandy, palm-covered beaches to lush green mountains, Sri Lanka boasts a rich, captivating flora and fauna.

Here’s a secret: while running, you are bound to bump into something really interesting. I did, too. Whilst racing forth on a promenade in Galle, the famous garrison, fort city in the south of Sri Lanka, I came across a rather intriguing find: an empty pack of cigarettes.

Since it had rained heavily the night before, the pack of cigarettes was soaking wet. And it was in tatters. So what's so intriguing about litter along the beach in a foreign land, you might ask. It was the photograph on the pack of cigarettes; of a sick baby in the hospital, with the caption ‘your smoking makes children ill’. As a public health message I thought it could be quite impactful in smoking reduction. One comes across terrible photos of mouth cancers with captions like ‘smoking causes cancer’ or ‘smoking kills’, but I think those have long-lost their cigarette-quitting potential.

However, the photo of a sick child on a pack of cigarettes is a creative approach: it made me stop and take notice. I speculated that if something similar were to be done in Pakistan, in tandem with a significant raise on cigarette taxes, it might actually lead to a reduction in the popularity of smoking.

Poo paper: recycling can be an art

Elephants are revered in Sri Lanka. That becomes obvious to you soon into your stay there. In fact, in certain places like Pinnawala you get to share narrow rural streets with the villagers and their pachyderms. While you're observing them, you might notice that they (the elephants) poop a lot. But that is fantastic news for they (the villagers) have realized the worth of elephant dung: almost half the vegetation that an elephant consumes comes out undigested at the other end.

The fibre in elephant dung is 100 % recyclable; after a few cycles of washing and drying, the odourless fibre is converted into paper. Hence the name ‘poo paper’. The villagers sell the organic paper in various ways: diaries, notebooks, calendars, postcards, greeting cards, and children’s books. And they make good money by selling their wares to tourists like me. The villagers have learned how to innovatively co-exist with the huge mammals - I bet that has some role to play in poverty alleviation in rural areas of Sri Lanka.

WHO and the MDGs

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are a set of indicators that nations the world over utilize to gauge their relative successes, or lack thereof, in areas like primary education, poverty alleviation, maternal/infant/child mortality, environmental sustainability, and so on. Both Pakistan and Sri Lanka are signatories of the WHO MDGs. However, where Pakistan is way off the mark for several MDG indicators, Sri Lanka has managed to achieve the targets for most of those goals, and has, in fact, already embarked upon post-MDGs.

Now there could be a number of reasons as to why two developing nations could be so discrepant. Considering the tons of funding that pours into Pakistan from the world over, coupled with the still-meagre governmental spending on Pakistan's public health, the outcome indicators via the MDGs are a stark reminder of where the focus needs to be.

Social innovation demonstrated by Sri Lankan initiatives might be a good comparator for us in Pakistan; simple, common sense strategies that don't need major foreign or local funding require some serious consideration here. Creative photography on cigarette packs as smoking deterrents and recycling of fiber in dung for generating revenue might sound laughably low-impact on face value as public health measures. Traditionalists and naysayers will cite lack of evidence for such initiatives from research projects that are heavily funded by western donors. To them I will say: go and observe for yourself in Sri Lanka how the public's health is effectively being tied into grassroots level creativity and innovation.

[from Health & Disease]

Author acknowledges Ms. Huma Baqir for critically reviewing and editing this blog post.