Community Action Day 2

The Relaunch   

On Monday the 7th of October 2019 at St Andrews International School Bangkok, Eco Beasts held ‘Community Action Day 2: The Relaunch’. After the success of last year’s event and all the positive feedback, Eco Beasts were motivated in continuing to help schools in Bangkok become greener with minimal effort. Over 20 international schools around Bangkok, 150 students, 30 international school teachers with an interest in sustainability attended.

The planet is facing many challenges, and Eco Beasts wanted to help! Eco Beasts was co-founded by former St Andrews teacher Helen Mullan, Eco Beasts believes that educating the children of today will help to solve the problems of tomorrow. Education is the key. There are many organisations in Bangkok already engaged in creative, green initiatives that involve all of the skills that Eco Beasts would like to teach as part of STEAM. There are huge opportunities for learning and problem solving when thinking about ways to Rethink, Refuse, Reduce, Repair, Reuse and Recycle. The aim of Eco Beasts Bangkok is to bring together the Bangkok international school community with these initiatives in order to learn, connect and to brainstorm ways so each and every school can work together.

Through partnerships with a range of local green initiatives, CAD 2 was all about showcasing their talents and linking them with schools in a helpful way. Eco Beasts believe in empowering schools, their students and their wider community with the information and tools to become more environmentally aware citizens of this amazing city. CAD 2 was another amazing success not only the schools that participated but for a brighter and greener future.

You can find out more about the Eco Beast mission by clicking on their website link here.

Another Successful Community Action Day!

Article by: Pim Phuriviwat aged 10.
Edited by: Ewen Mcleish 

The second Community Action Day (CAD) took place on 7th October 2019 with many schools and organisations coming together with the same goal; to try and prevent further damage to our beloved home.

21 schools (including STA 71, the hosts), and 18 green organisations spent the whole day educating and collaborating with each other about how we could improve the way we live. They worked as a team to find ways to help enhance the world by learning from inspirational people and organisations, as well as communicating with other schools to share ideas on sustainability.

“Everyday on the news, you could see terrible things are happening to our earth. What we need to do is come together, all of us, so we could discuss strategies, work as a team, and make a difference,” explained Mr Paul, Head of St. Andrews 71.

The idea of this day came from Ms Helen, a former St Andrews teacher, she explained:

“When I realised that in 10 years time all these things would become unfixable, I thought about the children that I teach and thought that they shouldn’t have a plastic world! They should have a beautiful world like the one I grew up in! So that was my motivation for the day.”

Over the course of the day, different people were interviewed about what they think about the event, what they do at their school and what they would like to improve:

Teachers:

“I think that this event is absolutely brilliant! I love how there are so many schools working together as a team! I learnt many new things like how to make beeswax covers to use instead of plastic cling film and I will go home and make some,”  stated Mrs Louise from Charter International School.

“Right now at our school we have many things going on sustainably. We are around 90% plastic free and hoping to go 100%. We’ve worked a lot to help wildlife, recently releasing sharks into the ocean. I think this event is awesome! It’s nice to meet students and teachers from different schools. I’ve already got ideas to improve collaboration in sustainability!” said Mr Kerry from ISB.

Students:

“We go on overnight trips to clean beaches. We recycle bottle caps and plastic bottles, making them into these piggy banks in art! What I think we need to improve on is recycling more plastic bags and trying to find out ways to reuse them,” said Iris, aged 10, from Berkeley International School.

“At our school we have solar panels on the shades of the parking lot. We used the energy in there to power up golf carts and bikes for the staff to get across campus! After learning about what Precious Plastic do, we are saving up money to buy one of the machines that make bowls out of bottle caps! We are really enjoying the event today and learnt many new things,” Pair, aged 12, and Mrs Douglas, from Rugby International School said.

We interviewed green organisations to learn more about what they do to help improve the world. Here are some quotes from some very inspiring people who are making a difference:

“We are Shark Guardians and we believe that people shouldn’t think that sharks are scary and murderous. We believe that people should stop having Shark Fin soup because really, sharks are crucial to our oceans and we should stop killing them. We have Student Ambassadors which are students that listen to us, and then bring our presentation to educate other students and hopefully they become student ambassadors too!” said Sheena from Shark Guardian.

“We are Precious Plastic, and the message we are trying to deliver is that, people think plastic is a bad thing, but if you use it wisely, it could turn out to be amazing! It is strong, durable, and even single use plastic may be a good thing because you don’t have to use it once! You could use it to make something new. We make bottle caps into beautiful bowls and many other things. It is all about the mindset!” Ms Bing from Precious Plastic stated.

Parents:

“I think it was really impressive - a huge success! I feel something like this will help people understand that we only have a few years to reduce our carbon (footprint) and become more sustainable and they will become motivated to do something. I think that education, like at this event, of ways to help is a good start!”  said Laura, a parent from STA 71.

As well as some very successful and interesting workshops, we had various speakers coming onto stage to speak to all of us about what they do. We had our very own Eco Beast team from STA 71 presenting about the progress they have made and the reason for these changes.  

We had Shark Guardians educating us about sharks and how we should stop exploiting and killing them. Ms Katy talked about the circular economy, and many more people. Also, we had a determined 12-year-old named Lily who talked to us about her journey of activism and trying to rid Thailand of single use plastic.

“My goal right now is for Thailand to not have single use plastic at all. Sometimes what I do can be very stressful, preparing speeches and talking to big executives, but it’s all worth it in the end because I get to help people and to encourage people to stop using single use plastic.” said Lily, aged 12, from STA 71.

“What I hope would come out of this event, is that the schools will start to work together instead of competing against each other. If all the schools come together as one, all over the city, through Eco Beasts clubs, we could really make a difference. We could genuinely make Bangkok a more sustainable city.” - Ms Helen, former teacher of STA 71 and the co-starter of Eco Beasts and CAD.

Overall, it was a really successful day. All the school pupils went back smiling and with new ideas on how to make the world a better, healthier, and more sustainable place.