Visiting The Green School Santa Theresia and SMP 37 Surabaya by Pasquelle van der Jagt

So today was my first day for Tunas Hijau! After a short introduction at the office, Mandy and I were going with Curtis, so we could see what we are going to do. We went to elementary school Santa Theresia I, this is already a ‘green’ school. So this means they are really teaching the children how to reduce global warming, reduce garbage and doing recycling and stuff. By example they make their own recycle paper and use it for sketching or writing. At first we had a class in which we (Curtis, Mandy and I) were telling about how in our home country garbage management is organized and what we are doing to reduce garbage, global warming and doing projects which are good for the environment.

It was cool, the children were like in the age of 10 to 12 years old and were really interesting in our environment management. And they wanted to ask questions, but were also a bit shy to ask them. But it was nice to share our experiences with them. Here after they showed us their green room. That was really cool, they had like all kinds of plants for making things (like their own aloë vera or ginger) and for breading. They also showed us to the make the recycle paper. Really cool. So in the next few weeks, this school is going to other schools and teach them about how this school also could do some activities for a better environment. I think this is quite special, in The Netherlands I think there is not such a project. But it’s really good. The children learn a lot from it and they also learn how to make other children aware of these environmental problems.

Next, we went to another school, a junior high school SMP 37 Surabaya. Here Curtis has a project about Carbon Footprint. So today he gave a presentation about Carbon Footprint and the project that this school is going to do about it. They’ll have a two-day during Conference in which they will have like little activities in different topics in which they’ll make other children aware of the environmental problems and what they can do about it to make it better. By example activities about reducing the use of electricity or the use of bio-electricity.

Then we got to the beach area in Surabaya, this is where Mandy and I’ll do our project. Danni and Bram showed us the environment over there and it’s so polluted. It’s a really big problem. The river that goes to the sea is completely filled with garbage, it’s really disastrous. At the beach site, a lot of waste garbage is lying on the stones. A few years ago, the beach was completely cleaned up, but just in a few weeks of time it was as polluted as before again. The people living over there don’t give anything about it, so that’s what we’re going to change hopefully. It’s like a very big task, but we can make a start for it.

So the first day was interesting and now we know what we’re going to do in the next time.