“What was your best day of television?”
– What I would like to say to everyone who prefers materialism over environmentalism.
I think I have made it clear how passionate I am about this topic. It’s not something I am doing out of the goodness of my heart or whatever other people claim it to be but simply, I’m doing what I am doing and standing for this cause out of need.
OUR PLANET IS DYING AND IT’S OUR FAULT.
This issue is of global importance and we must recognize and consider the ethics of our choices and actions to preserve our planet. I have realized the ignorance that consumes the majority of the people in our country and the world regarding the current climate crisis. It’s like, people know of the issue but they don’t really comprehend the scale and severity of the issue because the terms pollution and crisis have been so overused that people are taking it for granted. Alongside this understanding, I am also aware of how change won’t come from above. Our government and majority of the world leaders are what I call “wastes of space”. No offense, obviously. But greed and power go hand-in-hand and it’s a shame such well-educated people behave so selfishly and don’t contribute, in any way, to the preservation of this planet.
I may sound like a little girl just shouting at the adults and many would say, “you don’t understand how economics work or the world of politics and development” but honestly, I speak what I speak because I know these fields well enough to understand one thing: humans are ego-centric, materialistic creatures, designed to use the world as a resource to only realize its true worth once it’s all lost. Even the best of us aren’t willing to sacrifice their satisfaction and luxuries to better our planet. And people are so fake, they would do things like beach clean-ups and post about environmentalism while continuing to use single-use plastics and claiming, “but I have no other choice”.
You do not understand. How. Much. It. Drives. Me. Insane.
Now that I’ve done hating on humans, I must acknowledge that our world is designed in such a way that even those who want to change find it incredibly difficult to do so. I mean how is one expected to not use-single use plastic when even essentials like fruits and bread come wrapped in unnecessary amounts of polythene? How can you impose something like a carbon tax knowing that the ones affected by it the most would be those who consume the least? How can you ask vegans to stop traveling the world or cyclists to stop using palm oil products? Of course, you can ask them to stop doing them but what I’m trying to say is, not everyone can do everything. But that shouldn’t stop you from doing as many things as you can so, the key is really to find that balance between satisfaction and sustainability.
The IB requires that students complete a CAS project during their DP years. This is a collaborative, well-considered CAS experience, engaging students in one or more of the CAS strands of creativity, activity, and service. For my CAS Project, Disara and I came up with a Youth Sustainability Awareness Campaign, an advocacy to voice our concerns regarding environmental pollution and raise awareness about the issues our generations face in the future. The campaign is primarily divided into three parts: an in-school documentary, a local school talk and finally promoting our work on social media. The in-show documentary will be organized primarily by me whereas the local school talk will be done by Disara but the final aspect of our campaign will be handled by both of us. We plan to work every Wednesday after school and we have given each other deadlines and tasks that need to be complete. Each of us will make sure the other is on track with their work.
Many challenges were undertaken when organizing the youth campaign, starting with how most of our initial ideas for raising awareness had to be changed completely due to difficulty in collaborating with external organizations. For example, we initially planned to broadcast live on a radio channel regarding the importance of sustainability in our generation but the contacts I had did not keep communicating with us, resulting in us trying to find other organizations willing to collaborate. Then, we got the contact of a lady, Ms. Upekshi Perera, who leads an organization called Green Choice Lanka, and met up with her to discuss a way in which we could incorporate her to our campaign to which she agreed to an in-school talk where she presents to the kids the importance of sustainability and answers questions of the students with regards to this topic. But due to our very different schedules, the timing for this interview could not be organized and we had to work solo. However, these challenges only made us think more about the ways in which awareness can be effectively raised about an issue that everyone is already “aware” about.
When initiating and planning this CAS experience, many factors had to be considered. Firstly, a timeline was set up for this task, and after the many challenges we faced were overcome, Disara and I worked on formulating the delegation of work:
- In-School Documentary
– Rashmi finds and downloads a documentary.
– Rashmi organizes location and sets up for documentary.
– Disara organizes posters and Both put them up.
– Both advocate on social media to come watch the documentary.
– Both of us formulated questions to ask after the documentary.
- Interactive Presentation
– Disara gets several contacts for a possible audience.
– Rashmi focuses on writing the ways in which we can be proactive about living sustainable lifestyles for a younger audience.
– Disara focuses on the global importance of the issue for our generation and why it needs to addressed promptly for a younger audience.
– Both of us crosschecked and proofread our work.
– Both us come up with two interactive activities each.
- Advocating within the OSC Community and Social Media
– Rashmi does a writeup for the school newsletter
– Disara organizes a segment in our school news channel to discuss our efforts outside the OSC Community.
– Rashmi and Disara will summarize our campaign amongst our grade members during CAS.
– Rashmi and Disara will set up an Instagram account to advocate for environmental sustainability on social media.
We had to put in a significant amount of commitment to even plan this CAS Project. Prior planning and weekly meetups became regular for us to really plan out what our project will consist of. Being diligent IB students, we know the importance of SMART goals and that is exactly what we did. Conducting each of these activities will require more dedication and perseverance but this is something both Disara and I are ready and willing to do. Besides, she and I have, throughout the years, recognized and acknowledged the benefits of working collaboratively and both of us being co-service leaders, classmates and football players have led us to work together in many different fields. Our extensive involvement in the activities of one another has made us both realize how we work better with each other than working individually and even with some others.
Dates and Events will be discussed in detail as each segment of our CAS project is complete. So, keep a lookout for it!