The environmental issues had been becoming one of the most discussed topic in our community today. Since several years ago, many scientists had warned our people about the possibilities of climate change that will affect the living creatures' well-being in our planet, Earth. However, at that time not many people paid attention to the issue and did not get attracted to make changes to preserve our earth. In the past 2 decades, the Earth had been becoming hotter and hotter than it used to. Every corner of the cities in the world had been fulfilled by trash and many disasters came over us, from flood to landslide. Our daily behaviour has changed this planet to become the Earth that we know today.

 

Lately, many people started to get awaken from their daydreams and start to realise that our beloved Earth had changed within the past period of times. The changes had happened for years, which means it needs years of time to return it back to its previous condition. Many activists arise from our community, and many scientists work hard to keep our Earth as stable as it can be. People start to think about what could they do to save our planet. However, sadly to realise that most of them always think about enormous things that they could do to preserve our Earth rather than start from the easiest and smallest step they can do.

 

Last weekend, on January 14^th, I went to a slum area called Purwosari Area in Cirebon City, my parents' hometown. The place was located right beside the railway and none enough spaces available between each house. Inside the area, there were only small paths that could only be crossed by motorbike. It is very difficult for us to expect that there are people inside the community that could pay attention about how to save our Earth since it was quite stressing for them to keep survive in living their lives. Lucky to realise that one of my friend opened a reading centre for underprivileged children in the area. I contacted him when I was about to apply to become the 19^th Tunza Regional Ambassador last year, I asked him about his availability to give me time to educate the children that usually come to his place about the importance of preserving our environment. Luckily, my friend gave me a very good respond at that time, which then led me to come over to that slum area last weekend.

 

I came to the slum area as the representative of TUNZA that is always willing to give impacts and widespread the spirit of preserving our Earth to our community especially Children, our future hope. I arrived in the area around 3 p.m with a bunch of snacks, wafers, and milks that I would give to them so that they would pay attention to what I was going to do there, just like Gregory Mankiw's Principle of Economic "People Responds to Incentives". Lucky to know that I only needed around 20 minutes till all the children come over to my friend's place.

 

At 3.30 p.m I began to start an education explanation that I prepared for the children. I began with introducing myself and TUNZA Eco-Generation to them. It was then followed by several explanations in the forms of interactive stories regarding the importance of differentiating organic and inorganic trash, the importance of reducing the usage of paper to save our forests, and the explanation the possible danger that might be caused by climate change.

 

After the brief explanations I gave, I played a video that was recorded and provided by Dewan Nasional Perubahan Iklim Indonesia or the National Council of Climate Change of the Republic of Indonesia on 2012, titled "Bumiku" or "My Earth" in English. The video was around 27 minutes long and it told about the trip of a young lady from the town named Nada to a small village somewhere in Java. She met a young boy named Adam that did not know everything about climate change and its impact. As an educated young kid from the town, Nada always explained several things about the dangers of Climate Change and how it would impact Adam's life. The explanation was designed to be easily understood by children from any backgrounds. The video taught the children about the importance of throwing trashes in the trash bin, to reduce the usage of energy such us electric lamp and television, and to reduce the production of air pollution that was caused by the usage of motor vehicles.

 

At 4.30 p.m the video was finished and I continued by introducing some disasters that might happen as a result of our bad behaviour in both Bahasa Indonesia and English. So that, even though I came there to disseminate knowledge about the importance of preserving our nature, I also would love to enrich the children's English vocabularies by knowing the English word of each disasters I introduced.

 

Right before I finished the whole program, I recalled all the information I gave and followed by opening a question and answer sessions. To make sure that everyone would ask question or answer the question I would give, I informed that each student that could asked me a question or answer my question would receive TUNZA's official merchandise. Fortunately, the children were extremely active during that session. After the Q&A session finished, we did some photoshoot and I gave them the snacks, wafers, and the milk that I brought. However, to be fair, I asked them to promise me that start from that day they would throw trashes to the trash bin, and they would begin that while throwing the trash from the snacks that I gave.

 

I might not do something enormous for my community. I just did a simple thing that everyone will absolutely can do. However, not many people realise that we could do big changes by doing the simplest thing first and the simplest thing won't be realised if there's no will from the people that has a desire to make changes.

Me while explaining the first part of the explanation.

Me and the Children during Question and Answer Session.

Me, the Leader of Rumah Baca 'Sahabat Jiwa' Mr. Julius Darmawan, and the children while they were holding TUNZA's Official Merchandise.