May 26, 2009

Coastal Project And Mangrove Area

by Pasquelle van der Jagt

After a free day yesterday we had regained our energy for a new day. It was Pippin’s first day at Tunas Hijau, so he went with us. We first got to SMPN 31 Surabaya, this is one of the schools that will involve in our project for the coastal area. So it was the second time Mandy and I visited this school. Today we gave a presentation about what global warming exactly is and we also presented about water pollution and its effect on human beings (diseases, infections etc). Roni wanted us to make the children cry (or: make them aware of the size of the problem, that it’s really happening right now and that we have to do something about it).

Danni also showed them a movie to make them aware of the water problem that we’ll have in the future if we don’t change out habits right now. After the presentations and movies we started a little discussion with the children: what were their feelings about it, did they think it was important to do something about it.. so just checking if our message has come through. So kids told us, that after seeing the presentations and the movies they had a better view of the size of the problem. So it really made them aware. This was of course are goal.

So after this we could ask them what they as a school would like to do about het problem of global warming and water pollution. Together they decided that they would like to do some tree planting (at the school side, but also at the beach side), mural painting about the world and it’s environment, making a composting plan and learning about composting, and having a workshop about creating things from recycled products. Besides, we’re gonna plan a day with them to clean up the beach. And if there’s still time left we’ll do some extra thing near the beach area. Next week we’ll come back to SMPN 31 for tree planting and mural painting and later on we’ll do the other activities.

After this we went to the mangrove area, just outside Surabaya. This is an area where Tunas Hijau already has had an earlier project. They already planted some mangrove trees here, for rebuilding the mangrove busses. It was pretty cool, we got there by boat. Going down the river with on both sides green jungle plants (though also much waster garbage!!), terrific! At the mangrove area, we just checked out how everything was going there. Pippin is gonna do his project about the mangrove area, so for him it was a good thing to get to know about his project and to get to know about the environment and the conditions over there.

So this is everything we did today. Tomorrow Mandy and I will visit SMPN 15 again and after that we’ll go for our two-day trip to Mojokerto! Exciting!