Young and Green

Nowadays, maintaining and improving the Earth’s environment is becoming a more important task to us. It is not an easy task to balance between the economic growth and environment conservation. As we develop this planet to our benefits and needs, we should no compromise the environment. If there should be development, make it sustainable. We should leave this planet for the next generations. Do we really want the future generation to suffer?

The conservation should be instilled from young. However, the children do have less exposure to nature. They just can watch documentary in a television and get the information via internet. They should have the opportunity to see the real nature, touch, smell, feel and hear it by themselves. At least, it will heighten their sense of knowing what nature is all about through the real experience.

Bayer has taken the initiatives in hopes that their programme would encourage the youths to act responsibly towards improving and maintaining the environment. This year, the Bayer Young Environmental Envoy Project (BYEE) programme is organised by Bayer in partnership with United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and UPM. BAYER Group is a global enterprise that has been adopting environment-friendly practices since the 1990s.

The young people are the future leaders so they are the best persons to get involve in these programme. Through a selection process, the students aged between 18 and 24 have been choose to participate in the programme. The programmes have been held about a week once every year in Malaysia. During this programme, the participants are exposed to certain aspects of conservation. This programme is a quite effective experiential learning because they could see, hear and talk about the issue.

In my opinion, the parents should encourage their children to participate in any environmental education programme. The most effective way to assist in the development of a conscience amongst the children is to start raising awareness and to educate them about the environment. At least, they will get the opportunity to enhance their awareness of nature conservation together with the people in their community. Who knows, the children will be voicing their concerns of the world’s environment and sharing ideas on what they can do to promote environmental protection, conservation and sustainability.

To quote an old saying,

"when you want to bend a bamboo, you have to start from the shoots"