Kids for Earth

Climate change week is finally here, happening on the 19th June. Our official Billy the Plastic Bag book will be launched along with the opening of our ‘Bring Kids For Earth to your school’ Workshop. If  you want to take part, contact me at raphaelletseng@kidsforearthasia.com. You have to get a team of 4 or 5 kids from the ages 10 to 15 to come. 19th June is a Saturday and the workshop/launch will start at 11.00am. Hope to see some of you guys there!

Oh yeah, there is also going to be an eco bazaar running throughout most of the day. Kids For Earth will be selling bags and books there.

Astro TVIQ organised a workshop in SK Sri Petaling and made plans for Kids For Earth to present our Billy the Plastic Bag presentation. Isaac, Gautam, our newest member Idris and myself, stayed the whole morning and took part in some of the activities. At the end of the workshop, the members of Kids For Earth judged sketches of why not to use plastic bags and how to ban them. We all learnt about how a proper workshop should be run and this gave us some ideas for future workshops.

Issac Lee, Raphaelle Tseng, Idris Bin Azim, Gautam Jethwani

Grade 4 listening to Raphaelle's presentation

ISKL had their ‘Green’ week from the 19^th to the 23^rd April. To kick-start the week, they asked Kids For Earth to come and do the Billy the Plastic Bag Presentation for the Grade 4’s or Year 5. The 6 classes added up to about 120 kids. We asked them to design a poster for the competition and their response was quite enthusiastic so we are hoping to get some pretty good posters.

The dead line is May 14^th and Poster need to be handed back to Mr Ward.

The 3 winners will get a Billy the plastic bag book and a cotton bag! 

Yesterday, Lions and Leos distributed 500 green bags at the Sunday market.
That was a big success too ! One of the winning poster was used for the
leaflet given out along with the bag.
Some pictures here!

On Saturday 13^th March, Kids For Earth departed to Raub to take part in a day long, anti-plastic bag workshop with the Raub Leo club.

Arriving there, they quickly organised ourselves in order of birthdays as a simple icebreaker. Somebody, (not mentioning any names!) completely misunderstood the game and ended up saying the wrong thing (well, it was in mandarin so…).

Being special guests, members of KFE were not sorted into teams, unlike all the other teenagers. However, they decided to participate in the games anyway, all of Kids For Earth being one team (called Kids For Earth, obviously!).

George, Gautam and Gabriel all attempted (and nearly succeeded) to present the Billy the Plastic bag presentation in both mandarin and English. With the help of a translator, they managed to pass the message through and thoroughly entertained everyone!

After that, they took part in a game  about degradation   where they had to match up how long something took to degrade with its object. The best part was that the 100 PLUS, Chewing gum and banana hadn’t been eaten yet!

Afterwards, Aurelie, the organiser of the day, gave her presentation, again with the help of a translator, about plastic bags and why they where no good. Having looked at the quiz answers in the car, Raphaelle spotted all the fun facts that would be in the quiz such as:  The Great Pacific Garbage dump is 4 times the size of Malaysia.

Then, Kids For Earth brought a group of kids downstairs to have the eco-quiz. It was awesome and some of the answers were VERY surprising!

At 12.00, everybody raced to be the front of a long queue. The delicious aroma of nasi lemak drifted around the cafeteria. Everyone gobbled up his or her lunch, all finding that the sambal was EXTREMELY spicy!

At the end of lunchtime, Aurelie asked Kids for Earth to hide pieces of paper around Chong Ching School for the scavenger hunt. Meanwhile, all the teens upstairs were doing a word scramble, earning points for their team.

Next, Raphaelle presented her presentation on Eco-Schools and how to become one. Mandarin subtitles where already on her power point so there was no need for a translator.

Students announced three things they could do to make the school eco-friendly before they had the scavenger hunt.

THAT was a great success and everyone was running around the school, (in the 100*C heat!)  searching for well hidden bits of paper while Gabriel, Gautam and George fanned themselves in the shade.

To cool down, Aurelie had organised a 1 hour Art session where everyone had the choice to either design a poster against plastic bags or create a bag out of plastic bags. Both Kids For Earth members and the committee of the Leo club judged the winners.

At the end of the day, everybody was awarded a new Leo club grocery bag and a bookmark. The Leo club members all took a picture.

On the way back to KL, Kids For Earth stopped at a famous ice-cream shop on the road and had some delicious homemade ice-cream (although peanut flavour was very interesting…).

They arrived back home at 7 pm, having spent 12 hours out of their homes. __________________________________________________________

Kids For Earth had a fantastic day and would like to say a special thanks to Aurelie who organised everything, Gautam and George for coming and the members of the Leo Club for participating.

Think you’re to young to make much of an influence? Well maybe this will make you change your mind! A 12 yr old girl called Jennifer entered a competition to design an eco friendly house. Her plans contained solar panels and floor switches. It was such a fantastic design that Jennifer not only won the competition but Redditch Low Carbon Co-operative have decided to build 2 houses using her designs! They should be finished  around 2011 Summer.

Yesterday, Gabriel and me traveled to Forest Research Institution Malaysia aka FRIM to give RM 2000 To MNS. We handed the money to Gary Phong ;Chairman of MNS Selangor Branch and stayed for a part of the guiding workshop where we learned about the most common animals you find in Malaysia and safety while traveling in the forest. Thanks you to MNS!

A rotating tower? Man, it’s a shame the apartments cost around 36 million     dollars. First to be built in Dubai this eco friendly power should be able to   power not only itself but some other buildings nearby making it the first self  powered skyscraper in history. How will such a tower manage such a fate?  Between each level is a wind turbine and on the roof of each floor, solar panels will capture the suns heat.

This giant rubix cube is the worlds first tower to be built in a factory. Only the enormous, central pillar will be built on site. Whats even more intriguing is that all the furniture will be shipped with the levels!

Living inside the Dynamic tower will be like nothing ever before. The levels will have a voice activated control system so that if you call out city view, the level will rotate at your command. I would love to live in that tower!

Raphaelle learning the craft from Diana.

Pulau Carey. A beautiful island. Well, the part of it that’s not used up as Palm oil plantations. The large island, which is about 1/3 of the size of Singapore, used to belong to the Mah Meri. It was covered in lush forests where you could find anything up to medicines, food and bits and pieces you could use to build a home.Then, as usual, a bunch of greedy business men came along cutting down about 80% of the forest. Think about it, 100′s of food chains with predators as rare and wonderful as tigers and cheeky silver tailed monkeys and prey, exotic plants and birds. All this is cut down to ONE small chain: Palm oil fruit – Rat – Snake.

Luckily the Mah Meri are fighting for their part of the land. The parts they live on is barely enough land for the village. To earn money, some of the Mah Meri can weave astonishingly difficult patterns, bookmarks and boxes (trust me, they are extremely difficult!). Unfortunately, with their limited space and the many oil plantations surrounding them, it’s not easy to find places where they can plant the resources needed to weave.
Reita Rahim from Gerai Orang Asli does a lot of work to document and preserve the craft of the Orang Asli. You can look for Gerai OA on face book for more informations!

To buy things crafted by the Orang Asli, go to www.elevyn.com and you can learn more about the Orang Aa