It was quite literally the
children's day out at the Environment Day celebrations in the British Council. The day saw them leaving their text books,
television sets and video games and heading into the open to plant trees.
A tree planting program was arranged by the British Council on June 5 in which about 90 children from the age group of 5 to 15 years participated. This endeavour by the British Council was to imbibe in the children the importance of planting trees.
The program commenced with an interactive session in which the children introduced themselves. Later on, a class was held by
environmentalist Ajanta Perera on the importance of trees and also about basic concepts such as global warming.
The children were at their ease and were all ears when Ajanta was taking the class and screamed out the answers when questions were asked.
When asked to start planting trees, they divided themselves into groups. Even the little ones, instead of playing with the mud which is usually their favourite pastime, they planted the trees, sprinkled water and put manure as was told to them by the
instructors.
Apart from the initiative to plant trees, an exhibition of the works of the children was also held.
The day saw children
exhibiting their models they had made out of waste items. Waste materials were reused to create these models. Some of the items used to make the models were toothpaste tubes, wrappers and soap wrappers.
Some of the models exhibited were breath taking and revealed the imagination and creativity of the children. The models included a tortoise made using coconut and paper, a panda made using paper and cotton and so on.
I am sure that this little
adventure would be alive in their memory in the days to come when we hand over the responsibility of taking care of our mother earth into their hands. |
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