{"id":11444,"date":"2022-09-12T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-12T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ecoknights.org.my\/?p=11444"},"modified":"2023-09-04T23:37:10","modified_gmt":"2023-09-04T15:37:10","slug":"protecting-the-future-of-our-planet-starts-with-education-and-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ecoknights.org.my\/protecting-the-future-of-our-planet-starts-with-education-and-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Protecting the Future of Our Planet Starts With Education and Action"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written by Nurin Fatini, edited by Shahirah Anuar<\/em><\/p>\n

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When it comes to environmental action, the power of youth lies in collective participation.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“World Rivers Day” is an annual event held to raise awareness about the importance of protecting rivers from widespread plastic waste pollution. EcoKnights believe that by providing our children with effective and communicative education, we can help them understand and appreciate the value of nature. Hence, River Explorer Day was held in collaboration with Alibaba Group Malaysia to promote sustainability among the younger audience on becoming more responsible consumers and doing their part to protect our environment.<\/p>\n

This explorative program was conducted on the 10th of September, 2022, at Sungai Bunus in Desa Andaman, Wangsa Maju, with the support of Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) and Local Agenda 21 Kuala Lumpur (LA21KL). To summarise, young volunteers from both the international and public schools took part in numerous fun activities such as clean-up activity, BioD observation, mudball, Precious Plastic demonstration, and self-watering plant DIY workshops. The program began with a clean-up activity along the walkaway path, which was led by 49 enthusiastic participants who collected 66.5kg of trash in just 20 minutes!<\/p>\n

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Hand in hand, a group of students collected trash around the Sungai Bunus walkaway.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The segregation process was taught to students as part of the clean-up mechanism so that they could learn more about waste management.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This program aims not only to educate students about river pollution but also to foster an appreciation for the beauty of the environment and the importance of biodiversity balance in river restoration among students. That was the goal of the biodiversity observation, in which the students were able to identify a variety of living organisms throughout the park. The day continued with a few more interactive sessions that required creative and motor skills while educating on smart water consumers and river water quality restoration, whereupon the students created approximately 230 mudballs and upcycled 49 empty plastic bottles brought from home into self-watering plant pots.<\/p>\n

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During the BioD session, students actively attempted to complete the handed sheet.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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While being assisted by EcoKnights team members, the students practised mudballs (on the left) and self-watering DIY (on the right).<\/p>\n

To round out the day of meaningful activities, the students had the opportunity to learn something new and surreal about plastic, which is the plastic upcycling process. The Fuze Ecoteer team demonstrated the process of upcycling plastic through shredding, melting, and pressing techniques. Through this session, students may begin to adopt mindfulness practises such as reuse and recycling, which have a significant impact on lowering the carbon footprint, as well as raising awareness about the importance of protecting water bodies and their surroundings.<\/p>\n

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Full house \u2014 students intently focused on the explanation of the plastic upcycling process.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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A group photo of the students remarked the end of the River Explorer Day.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fostering Young Minds for Smart Consumption Digitally<\/b><\/h4>\n

Another activity, an online engagement talk was held on the 14th of September, as part of Alibaba Group Malaysia’s ESG initiatives, to equip the young audience with plastic knowledge, shared by amazing speakers, Dr. Yasmin Rasyid (President of EcoKnights), Yoong Yi from Precious Plastic Malaysia, and Affan Nasaruddin from UM Water Warriors. The key takeaways from this talk focused on the reality of our current global plastic footprint, particularly in Malaysia, as well as useful information and tips on how to be a good consumer \u2014 with a simple and practical lifestyle \u2014 through the sharing of sustainable consumerist practises.<\/p>\n

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Affan shared the reality of what has happened to our river, that’s a plastic-filled river somewhere in Petaling Jaya.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Educating our youth is one way to start a movement to reduce plastic waste in landfills and transition to a low-carbon circular economy model. These programs have the potential to influence positive behaviour and attitudes among our youth, particularly regarding sustainable practises in plastic waste management. We hope that the participants gained a better understanding and valuable perspective on their role in sustainable consumerism, as well as a sense of empowerment in making smart climate choices and reducing their plastic footprint \u2014 beginning with small steps. Change begins with you! If you want to start influencing change in our ecosystem, please contact us at info@ecoknights.org.my.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Nurin Fatini, edited by Shahirah Anuar When it comes to environmental action, the power of youth lies in collective participation. “World Rivers Day” is an annual event held to raise awareness about the importance of protecting rivers from widespread plastic waste pollution. EcoKnights believe that by providing our children with effective and communicative […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":""},"categories":[88],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ecoknights.org.my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11444"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ecoknights.org.my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ecoknights.org.my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ecoknights.org.my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ecoknights.org.my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11444"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ecoknights.org.my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11461,"href":"https:\/\/ecoknights.org.my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11444\/revisions\/11461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ecoknights.org.my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ecoknights.org.my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ecoknights.org.my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}