June 5, 2009

"Beautiful City, Beautiful Life"

As part of international Environmental Awareness Week I asked the students in my private class to work in pairs and come up with a project to help solve an environmental issue in Pursat. Each team presented their plan to the group and then we voted on the best one. Prizes were involved, of course! After a full week of project planning and much agonizing deliberation about which team’s idea was most realistic and helpful, we finally settled on “Beautiful City, Beautiful Life,” by Visa and Lehoung (that’s them in the photo).

All the students agree that “rubbish,” as they call it with their quirky half-Khmer, half-British accents, is the biggest problem in our town. To address this issue, Visa and Lehoung proposed that students at SC form an Environment Club that will run for the duration of summer. To kick off the club, we will host an awareness campaign and “bring-a-buddy” trash pick-up day. Over the course of the next week or so, we will take pictures of trash and pollution in town and use these images to create posters featuring stats and facts about the importance of proper trash disposal, composting techniques, and recycling. The club members will use these posters to give a presentation to the local community before we all head down to the river to clean up the area.

The club’s next goal is to create three trash bins for especially polluted areas around town. We are currently fundraising 60,000rh (that’s the equivalent of $15.00) to buy bamboo from the surrounding villages and soliciting donations for nails and hammers. I am impressed with the students’ initiative and passion about the issue and am looking forward to a very GREEN summer!

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