Since last September, I founded a project together with another 3 Singaporeans at Berkeley and participated in a grant-funding competition called Big Ideas @ Berkeley, which awards prize money to fund innovative ideas. We are now entering a video contest for a People's Choice Award as part of the competition, and winning the Award is based on purely YOUR votes, so every vote counts! Please vote for our video and help us pass the video link on to your friends. You can help us make this happen!
Click here to vote. (You'll need a Facebook account, and you need to allow access to the Contests app). Thank you very much!
Here's more information about our project and what we do:
L.E.A.F. (Leverage Environmental Education, Act for Future Generations) is founded to provide an innovative approach to address environmental issues that are not being addressed effectively. To achieve a long-term and effective impact, our team is focusing on education of children most affected by poverty caused by these environmental issues. We propose an initial approach in the form of an experiential camp. According to the performance of the camp and the response we receive from schools and students, the educational model can be delivered in other forms and incorporated in school curricula in the future.
LEAF’s educational model emphasizes the teaching of soft skills essential in the 21st Century through interactive methods. By providing hands-on and innovative lessons across disciplines like Art, Science and English, our team aims to raise students’ awareness of multiple perspectives to problems, and consequently to equip them with the ability to develop different viewpoints to any single issue. Students can develop better teamwork, communication and critical thinking skills, which allows them to assess and more effectively address the environmental problems and poverty around them. Eventually, our team aims to enable the students to higher education and better employment, helping them escape the poverty cycle.
Developed countries like the US, Europe and Japan have been continuously dumping E-waste to various parts of developing countries, thus straining the sustainability of the local environment and health of their residents. It is a severe poverty issue because E-waste recycling is usually carried out by poverty-stricken and socially marginalized groups who are forced to rummage through and handpick waste for survival. Thus L.E.A.F's first project E-Du-Waste targets Guiyu, China, which is the largest dumping ground of E-waste in the world. Current efforts to address this issue have been ineffective due to economic incentives associated with the thriving E-waste industry, and poor legislative enforcement in China.
Our team currently focuses on educating middle school students in Guiyu. In collaboration with environmental groups in Chinese universities and UC Berkeley students, we will organize a 5-day educational camp for each targeted school to equip the local students with critical thinking skills and insights on environmental issues. The camp comprises interactive education in the disciplines of English, Art, Film and Science, facilitated by college student volunteers in the relevant majors. At the end of the camp, participants will present their work to the public. Our team may produce publicity material based on the camp and make it available to E-waste recycling centers to raise public awareness.
The students, inspired by their interaction with the university students from China and the US, can be motivated to seek higher education and avoid harmful E-waste recycling jobs in the future. Based on our experience gained from the educational camp in Guiyu, we can further improve this model in the future to impact a larger audience more effectively. Our educational model can potentially be used by other advocate groups that are addressing similar politically sensitive issues. Please vote for our video and support us in our project!
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