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Our YEGs were at the Central Singapore Environmental Regional Workshop held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel on Saturday 29th March 2008.
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They facilitating the workshops for grassroot leaders.
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The YEGs shared with the grassroots leader the impact of climate change to the environment.
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Mayor of Central Singapore District, Mr Zainudin Nordin sharing with our YEGs the impact of climate change after watching their video. The YEGs conducted street interviews on climate change in Orchard Road on 23rd February 2008.
Later he had a discussion with Mrs Selva and Ms Sherri Ng about Mayflower environmental effort.
The YEGs taking a photo with Mrs Ess, Mrs Selva and Ms Sherri Ng,
Reflections from some of the YEGs By Win Srisakvarakul Chaiyakorn
It was certainly an honour for me to meet and interact with the mayor of Central Singapore District and a privilege for me to serve the grassroots leaders of Singapore.
I realised that this exposure is good, if not, critical in training one on how to portray oneself in such formal occasion.
Indeed, I gained a lot through this priceless experience and am eager to participate in more of the Youth Environmental Guardian activities. These activities, are done out of my desire to participate in the campaign to slow down the process of climate change and also to explore the different aspect of life.
Through this experience at Grand Hyatt Hotel, I am more geared up and my hunger to achieve those goals were boosted.
I am particularly thankful to learn that Singapore had started to take a step to create awareness in the method of conservation of energy. People had always been told to save energy, but how? Is the usage of lesser electricity the only way? These are the hot question which remained unanswered for sometime.
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The awareness created throughProject Switch give us many simple tips to remember and easy to follow steps to save energy. Some of them are like switch off the main switch instead of leaving the television on standby mode which also consumes energy. This campaign are driven by its motto of “Saving electricity also save your electricity bills” which unquestionably logical.
This awareness created will be one of the pivot step in reducing the consumption of electricity, slowing down the rate of climate change that started revealing its hidden dagger by bombarding hail stones down in Bishan and Ang Mo Kio. Climate change will start to take its toll causing damages on property soon and following the guideline of campaign is a small little part that we can do to slow down the process.
I was extremely please to acknowledge that our effort of producing the video on the awareness of people on the issue of climate change had been gladly welcome and became a hit! Many grassroots and important people even requested for it.
From this experience, I believed that it is certainly possible that we will be able to continue our senior’s legacy to reach out to the community. Though saving environment shouldn’t be a competition among ourselves but the limited time we had to make a different, I realize that it would be healthy for us to do ourselves (aiming for gold) as it would spur us and be the drive to push us, making us do our best. Though its still a long way to go to end the campaign on slowing the climate change, I am glad that I could play a part and make a different, improving myself and the people around me in the progress.
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By Simon Lim
After attending the enviroment workshop at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, it sort of gave me more hope that there are actually people who care about the enviroment as much as the YEGs and we are not alone it the fight against climate change and global warming.
In short it was an enjoyable event. So the workshop started off at 2pm, however we had to be there early to be briefed about the game that we will be conducting and how were we suppose to facilitate the guest and I was assigned to the table where the director of NEA(national enviromental agency) was sitting.
This is of course a rare oppotunity. I felt both excited and nerve wrecking at the same time because it was the first time I was being a facilitator as there is lots of things to learn.
But well I soon got over it and everything went as planned so it was cool! Now moving on to the details of the workshop. It started by introducing us about global warming, how it affect us and how do we raise awareness to the members of the public about these issue. The Grassroot leaders then introduce the Switch Progamme which I personally found it useful as it is to my understanding that some other coutries are also using these method to raise awareness about the critical situation.
And there was a global activity that I participated in that Saturday. It was to switch off all electrical appliance from 8pm until 9pm.After the talk on SWITCH programme, it was time for the Outram Park Sec student to present their project on global warming.
After their presentation we had a tea break. During that period of time we actually went around and talk with the different members of the grassroot community about their thoughts about global warming which proven to be enriching and interesting.
Then we went back the hall and got our interview at Orchard Road to be played.I was suprised that they actually used it and it was satisfying to see howthe fruit of our labour were presented. What more interesting was the VIP and some of the members actually wanted a copy of it.
To sum up I find this workshop an eventful one, it was enriching to hear what other have to say about global warming. I had learned a thing or two during the workshop....
PS:Skills and talent might get you to the top but it is the character that keeps you up there.
By Tan Wei Chun
Today, we went to Grand Hyatt hotel for a regional workshop. It was both an interesting and fruitful workshop.
I was honored to be part of the Mayflower Secondary School Youth Environmental Guardians (YEGs) to be given the opportunity to take part in this event.
The speech by the VIP, Mayor of Central Singapore District, Mr Zainudin Nordin, inflicted upon me a great impact : we should wake up already. Not now, then when? He introduced the SWITCH project where it encourages everyone, including small enterprises, to help the environment by doing small little things.
For example, to switch the air- conditioner at a moderate 25 degree Celsius, we would save the environment by saving energy as we only need the air-conditioner to cool ourselves and not to make us feel very cold, to the extent that we have to wear a jacket.
Another point noted by Mayor Nordin was that in the conference room, the organisers had provided us with water kept inside small 500ml plastic bottles.
He said that, and I totally agreedusing plastic bottles would harm the environment, as after using it, we would throw it away. I find that this is rather ironic and seriously serves as a wake up call for all.
There are many little things in our daily lives that we do not think that they would help the environment, like replacing plastic bottles with some other environmental- friendly materials.
However, even everyone in the world contributes, even the smallest things we do would be magnified, and help the environment. Singaporeans, it’s time we wake up and look around us for the simplest things we could do to save our already deteriorating environment. Not now, then when? Not you, then who?
As the workshop proceeded towards the end, the organisers showed a video clip that my fellow YEGs and me had put in effort to do. This video clip, edited by professionals, shows two of our YEGs interviewing the public. This event occurred about a month ago, where we were given the task to gather some of the members of public and get them to share their views on a very serious issue ; climate change.
After the video clip was shown, we were complimented by the Mayor and he said that it was a great video he would never forget. I was honoured and happy as our hard work were recognised.
The workshop ended in the evening, and as always, I feel proud to be a YEG and also a Mayflowerian.
By Kelvin Lee
I felt that the workshop was very interesting as it had taught us tips that we can use to save the Earth. Although the tips were so commonly found in all kinds of save the environment workshop, they had a special thing is that they had tell us the amount of money we had saved if we had done this particular habit. While the mayor was talking to us, we felt so shocked as we did not know he was behind us. As a result we did not interact a lot with him. After that, some of the grassroots leaders started to take the initiative to talk to us. This time, we had conquered our fear towards talking to “high class people” and started to talk to them about YEG in our school.
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I was very pleased as many of the people started to tell us that our video was fantastic and even asked for copies for it for their workshops. This had shown that our hardworks producing the video had not been wasted. Also I hoped that there would be more opportunities participating in some more workshops and working with the MPs, mayors and even PM in the future.
Leow Jian Hao
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It was 10.30am when we reached there, the Grand Hyatt Hotel.It was my first time going there. We waited in the hotel lobby for our teacher, Mrs Frances Ess's arrival as the manager or some supervisor of the hotel told us to. Previously we were waiting outside the hotel and it was quite weird for people to stand outside their doors blocking their customer’s way. Finally she came and brought us up to the second floor to the Sir Stanford’s room for the workshop.
To our amazement, the workshop actually started at 2pm and we were 2hrs early as at one there would be a buffet lunch catered for us. Off we went to the buffet, it was very classy and scary because it would be embarrassment if we used the wrong eating utensil. On the table there are a total of 2 spoons, 1 knife and 2 forks. It went on well as whenever we made a mistake, Mrs Ess would correct us immediately.
After the lunch, the workshop started with a talk about what can we do to help slow down the process of global warming on the energy conservation aspect. I learnt that even putting our electrical appliances on standby mode would also consume energy and the saving that came about when we did all those stuff mention is quite significant.
After that it followed up with a sentences forming game. It involved mixing and matching the words on the cards given out by us. We were being approached to help out in this game as facilitators.
At first after I have explained the rules to them, their responds told me that they were kind of not interested and only 3 of them were involved. So I tried to get them involved and eventually they got so involved that one of the participant who was not interested went around copying others answers ( although it is not morally right ). It gave me a sense of achievement.
After this, it was the presentations brought by Outram Park Secondary School. They gave us a talk about the global warming in around the world. I learnt that actually the appliance which consume the most energy is our refrigerator and air-condition. I find that their talk was full of content.
After the tea break, it was time to view the video of our interview. The responses of the guests were great and many wanted a copy of our video for their presentation.
Peh Rui Xiang
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After attending the workshop at Great Hyatt Hotel, Singapore, it left me pondering about certain things.
Firstly, will everything that the students have done really help create awareness in the public's mind? Looking at the way Outram Park Secondary present their slides, I must conclude that it is very informative, but if they are going to present the slides to the public, it will never work.
Even if people understand their language, ensuring that they can picture the situation in their heads is another total different thing. They did a skid which I think they really put in a lot of effort in(although I was not able to understand it) on the local thoughts of Singaporeans.
Secondly, I’m sure everyone is familiar with the ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ phrase. I feel that instead of reducing, why don’t we find substitutes that are able to last? Won’t that be more effective than using a plastic bag and keep using until it tears and you will still have to throw it away?
A good example is using metal containers to hold food when you take away. Of course considering the youths today, we know that it is almost impossible to tell them to carry one of those old-fashioned containers that we can reuse for unlimited number of times.
What the officials can do is create a trend for carrying those metal containers. During the YEG competition in January, we suggested having designs on it. Designs of art that will fascinate the youths.
Also in supermarkets, you can see people using reusable bags. But how many youths can you see actually using them? I personally feel that those bags could act as a handbag for women. Perhaps the government can try creating a reusable bag for the youths. Having different fashionable designs on those bags will let youths think that it is cool to have a reusable bag.
Thirdly, I must really comment on the effort of the government to slow the rate of global warming and creating awareness in the public. After seeing the ‘SWITCH’ programme proposed by government, I feel that the government is moving in the correct direction to create awareness in the public. By relating the utility bills and advising them on ways to reduce their bills, people will actually see the result(reduced electrical bills) and believe in the government.
I feel that by only writing in newspapers and holding talks, people will only know that climate change is an actual fact. But whether or not it will affect them, is another different thing.
The YEGs were invited to show case the Shoo! Mozzie together with Cicada Tree Eco-Place the environment NGO that Mayflower Secondary is partnering to promote environmental awareness.
YEGs answering questions about Shoo Mozzie from the science teachers.
YEGs presenting their slide shows on Shoo Mozzie.
Celine the creator of Shoo Mozzie was there to explain in greater detail why we should use organic products.
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