Tondo kids are being recruited to join the army of warriors that will help protect Mother Nature.
Volunteer environmentalists gathered recently school kids in Barangay 118 for a fun-filled session as part of its Good Nature program.
Spearheaded by conservation group World Wildlife Fund-Philippines (WWF), in partnership with the Starbucks Coffee chain, the session taught children in an exciting way how to protect Mother Nature.
The campaign aims to engage people in the fight against various environmental issues and get their commitment to help address climate change by educating children, developing good-natured individuals and creating a stewardship scheme for the environment.
Although climate change is a natural phenomenon, experts say it is occurring at a much faster pace today primarily because human activities are releasing large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. In the past, climate change happened gradually, taking thousands of years before its effects were felt.
Kathryn Faith Isobel Resurreccion, head of WWF-Philippines’ environmental education program, said: “Through the project, we have the opportunity to seed knowledge, provide tangible solutions and actively participate in the overall process of saving and protecting the environment.”
Stories on environment
In trying to raise awareness among Tondo children of waste management and the effects of climate change, WWF and Starbucks conducted games and storytelling, presented action songs, and asked the children to do art projects for their peers and other community members of Barangay 118.
Resurreccion, who developed the session, facilitated the event. She made it interactive to be more engaging to young participants and to enhance their learning experience.
A word game was played as warm-up activity. Children tried to form words using the letters in trash, waste and basura.
After the game, Resurreccion delivered a short lecture on how to deal properly with solid wastes. She taught the children about the three R’s: reduce, reuse and recycle.
The WWF said an average Filipino generated 0.3 and 0.5 kilogram of solid wastes daily in rural and urban areas, respectively. In Metro Manila alone, an estimated 6,700 metric tons of garbage are produced every day.
WWF has four other conservation thrusts aside from waste management. These are climate change and sustainability, energy efficiency and conservation, biodiversity conservation and water conservation.
“Proper waste management or segregation and reducing, reusing, recycling decrease the amount of wastes in landfills and the release of (greenhouse gas) methane in the atmosphere. However, waste management is not effectively practiced in the Philippines,” said Resurreccion.
With the help of stuffed toys, Resurreccion showed the kids how human activities adversely affected other creatures. She told the story of sea turtles that fed on jellyfish. The turtles sometimes mistook plastic carelessly thrown away by humans for jellyfish, she said.
The plastic could make the turtles sick and even kill them, she added.
‘Futkal’
Highlight of the event was the “futkal” or futbol sa kalye. Television personalities Rovilson Fernandez and Marc Nelson, WWF ambassadors, engaged the Tondo kids in the eco-friendly game, teaching them how to segregate wastes properly into biodegradable and nonbiodegradable as they played.
Using small rubber balls bearing labels of common solid wastes like paper, plastic bag and bottle, two groups of selected Tondo kids played the football-inspired game. Players of each team kicked the balls into baskets labeled nabubulok (biodegradable) and di nabubulok (nonbiodegradable).
Fernandez and Nelson coached each team and were also the referees. Fernandez said he and Nelson had been lending their free time to WWF for almost two years now in support of its environmental advocacy.
They stayed on for the next activity where kids had to determine if details given by Resurreccion pertained to any common solid waste, namely paper, glass or rubber.
Other activities the kids enjoyed were the singing of “’Pag may Kalat sa Sahig Pulutin Mo” to the tune of “When You’re Happy and You Know It” and designing paper cups using the lessons they learned from the session.
At the end of the event, the children received a story card on proper waste segregation and a sticker with the same message that spelled out the acronym TAMA:
T-ingnan kung kailangan talaga ang isang gamit bago ito bilhin. (Check if you really need something before buying it.)
A-yusin ang mga basura, paghiwalayin ang nabubulok sa hindi nabubulok. (Segregate the waste into biodegradable and nonbiodegradable.)
M-aging maingat sa mga gamit. (Take care of your things.)
A-lamin kung maaari pang magamit ang lumang bagay. (Check if any old thing you have is still useful.)
Resurreccion also invited private companies to partner with WWF in its corporate social responsibility projects. Those interested may call 9207926 local 22 or e-mail kfiresurreccion@wwf.org.ph.