| What was the most memorable lesson that you’ve learnt from the YEE course?
The most memorable thing lesson I’ve learnt from the YEE course would be the importance of conveying to people how easy it is for them to make a difference to the environment.
Why do you feel that way?
During the training session, the trainer, Mr Robert, taught us that most people tend to be apathetic towards environmental events and catastrophes because they cannot visualise how their actions can contribute to the larger scheme of things. Thus, I learnt that our role as advocates involves breaking environmental protection down into bite-sized changes that others can make to their own lives. An example of this is promoting the “7 Easy Green Habits”, which ECO Singapore has engineered.
How have you applied what you’ve learnt in your own personal life?
Attending the course has given me a wealth of insights regarding how to reach out to people and how to plan environmental activities. This has been very beneficial to me in the organization of future events, such as overseeing projects during RE-Live@Atrium 2009 for the public, like the Eco Trail and the Green Mile. This skill allows me to compartmentalise things that I learn in school into smaller, neater packages for ease of recollection and organization.
From learning how to divide complicated ideas into smaller packets, I am able to form associations in my schoolwork, such as through creating concept maps and organising ideas under key points. This in turn reinforces my ability to communicate with others when I speak to them as an environmental advocate, as the message comes across in a more coherent manner. How has that changed your perspective in your personal life?
As someone who was drawn to environmental protection by groundbreaking phenomena such as climate change and rising sea levels, learning about how to care for the environment in more direct means has enabled me to come to terms with my personal responsibility to do my part for conservation. Hence, instead of always focusing on organising projects that spread awareness on a large scale, it has reminded me of the importance of organising small-scale projects that could better cultivate a sense of responsibility among the participants. The smaller the group, the higher the likelihood that the particpants would take it upon themselves to engage in an assigned task.
What are some things that you’ve done that you would like to share?
One of them is how to interact with people who are also interested in planning environmental activities, and engage them in initiating activities that can reach out to a larger body of youth. This emphasazes the importance of practising techniques pertaining to how we can engage people to participate in awareness projects, but at a personal level.
For example, in the second half of 2009 a few of my school friends are thinking of mentoring small groups of secondary school students in executing projects to meet the needs of their schools. We will then develop short-term projects in which where they take ownership of the environmental scene in their schools. What made you join NEA YEE?
My Secondary 3 teacher told me that it would be a great opportunity to raise my awareness of environmental issues and develop project planning skills. As I was interested in working on school-based projects to increase the level of awareness about climate change, I joined the YEE programme to find out more about how I could make my project better.
Could you share with us some highlights of your involvement in environmental work since the YEE course?
I would not say that there are highlights to my environmental involvements, as every step of the journey has been equally meaningful and enlightening in its own way. However I feel that helping to organise RE-Live@Atrium was definitely a major milestone. I was part of a team of students from various tertiary institutions under the supervision of ECO Singapore and NTU leaders. There, I had the opportunity to know more individuals who were similarly passionate in organising environmental awareness events.
It was extremely enriching because the event began with bold objectives of reaching out to youth within a two-week awareness event at Plaza Singapura. It stretched us in mustering effort to contact partners to support the event and brainstorm strategies to publicise our road shows.
The most inspiring ideas were coming up with methods of pledging that were easy to grasp. An example was the palming our handprints on a canvas and writing messages, an idea that developed from our committee members’ intensive brainstorming and was well received by the public. We had over 500 pledges towards the “7 Easy Green Habits”, which was very encouraging to us as we did not expect the public to be so forthcoming with their contact details.
Another memorable highlight was the opportunity to attend the Bayer Young Environmental Envoys Study Trip in Leverkusen. I had worked on a research project on waste management and this trip let me gain a better understanding of the advanced degree of technology involved in municipal waste management techniques in larger cities.
In addition, the study trip also allowed me to receive valuable feedback on the LOWaste Indicator, a questionnaire that I had been working on pertaining to individual waste generation. From the feedback, I was able to develop a more holistic set of questions as indicators of the extent to which individuals generated waste in the community, and how they could remedy the situation. This was made possible by the diversity of international perspectives with different waste disposal and generation habits that I learnt about during the study trip. E |
