Sri Lanka: Twenty one million dreams. One planet, consume with care

Thursday, 2 July 2015 00:35 -     - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

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The British Council’s events for World Environment Day were held over 5 and 6 June with activities for every age group. In Colombo, the events commenced with an evening talk for adults. Deputy Country Director David Maynard started by talking about the importance of green initiatives at the British Council and guest speaker Anosha Koralage then commenced with a brief introduction on this year’s theme and discussed ‘many small ways of contributing to save the environment’.  

She focused mostly on practical measures that could be easily done at home such as reducing font sizes by 1 point leading to saving pages, as well as being a vegetarian for a day. She then moved onto the concept of the 7Rs being for example Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and explained in detail the importance of each of these words. It then continued with a brief introduction on library E-memberships. The evening ended with a song to keep the mood lively. 

The next day was filled with exciting activities for young learners. The day started off with storytelling sessions with the main theme being ‘saving trees’. The children ended by making a promise by way of a pledge to save trees and the bigger students in the age group promised to save planet earth with five or more pledges. The day continued with various paper making demonstrations which was well attended by various age groups. This was done using old paper, a blender and a few very interesting wooden tools. 

The afternoon brought in a craft workshop where children made plastic bottle gardens, where the concept Reuse was really instigated. And finally a video was played in the library with young and old attending; it seemed as if the customers dropped their books mesmerised by the video that was being showed. 

The event ended with Country Director Keith Davies planting a Kohomba tree in front of the British Council. 

British Council Kandy organised two main events. The first was a poster competition which consisted of two main categories. 

Junior: The theme was ‘Thank you mother nature’

Senior: The theme was ‘Consume with care’ 

Two winners were chosen from each category. The second event was a quiz which was held on 5 June. There were five teams that competed.

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