| UNC-CH
Ideliya Khismatova Statistics and Analysis B.S. and Environmental Sciences B.S.
Tell us about your work with CompostMates and Map the System: As an executive member of CompostMates, I have spent the past two semesters working to create a free compost pick-up service that provides students the opportunity to lower their carbon footprints. Being involved with this has allowed me to make a bigger impact on the local community with respect to sustainable efforts in addition to being co-chair of the Renewable Energy Special Projects Committee, where I help create and work on energy efficient projects to fund for the university. In addition to this, I have loved being involved with the Map the System competition at UNC for the past two years, where I have spent time learning about the nuances of issues such as hog farming and flooding in North Carolina, and about how many factors, such as environmental, social, and financial, play a role in certain issues.
What inspired you to get involved with CompostMates? Before I moved to Chapel Hill for college, my family and I would always compost at home. However, I realized that as a UNC student living off-campus, composting is relatively inaccessible if you don’t have time or a reliable source of transportation, among other reasons. Wanting to help students contribute to sustainability efforts, as well as reduce the amount of organic waste going to landfills, I decided to join a few other passionate students to create this program.
First step to make an impact: CompostMates started as an idea from myself and a few other members of the Environmental Affairs Committee on UNC’s Student Government. This idea inspired us to apply for the Bryan Fellowship, which funds student community engagement projects. We were lucky enough to receive this fellowship, so we were able to expand by building a social media platform to get the word out and eventually pilot the program this past spring semester. Since then, we have diverted more than 2000 pounds of organic waste from landfills!
Valuable Courses: ENEC 350 – Environmental Law and Policy; ENEC 201 – Introduction to Environment and Society
Mentors: Ryan Nilsen, Senior Program Officer for Community Engagement; Greg Gangi, Assistant Professor at the UNC Institute for the Environment; Melissa Carrier, Director of Social Innovation
Advice: The amazing part about community engagement is that there are so many directions you can go in. Personally, a lot of mine stems from my passion for sustainability, but I believe that just about anyone can find an engagement opportunity that would be meaningful to them. I encourage students interested in community engagement to pour their passions into the community by finding (or even creating) opportunities that align with their own values. In addition to that, I think it is also a great idea to do something that you would originally “never” consider doing, as you might find yourself learning about something you otherwise never would have gotten to.