Environment & Climate Change
Waste Wood Upcycling Workshop @Mei Foo Farm Fest
According to the government figures, Hong Kong sends more than 380 tonnes of wood and rattan to municipal landfills every day. YMCA of Hong Kong strives to protect the environment and encourage people in the community play meaningful roles in turning ‘wastes’ into boons for the environment. Therefore, we kick-started the project of Waste Wood Upcycling Workshop in March 2021.
Winsome has been living in Mei Foo for more than a decade and always wants to contribute for her lovely community. The Workshop gives her an opportunity to decorate the YMCA Mei Foo Farm Fest by recycling the wasted woods into useful items. “We are not only giving the disposed woods a second life but are also benefiting the stallholders. I am very pleased to be able to give back to the Farm Fest.” She said.
Winsome spent 3 Sundays collecting wasted woods, learning woodcraft and making useful wooden furniture for stallholders of the farm fest. “Thank you YMCA for launching this social innovation project, to gather people in our neighbourhood who shared the same vision in making our community a better place.”
The second round of workshops were completed at the end of May and the third round of workshops are expected to be held in July. We are looking forward to engaging more ‘apprentices’ to participate in this meaningful project!
Restore our Earth, we are on our Way
Last Updated (Friday, 28 May 2021 16:36)
More than a hundred youth from different YMCAs and youth groups attended the first Youth-Led Solutions (YLS) Climate Action Fair organized by the Asia Pacific Alliance of YMCAs (APAY) on May 22, 2021. This YLS Climate Action Fair is the APAY's initiative to follow through and mentor the APAY YLS Solution Teams in their implementation of projects and also as part of the continued commitment to strengthening the network and green movement towards a carbon-neutral YMCA by 2030. It showcased the 7 solution projects did by the youth-led solutions team from different countries during the fair:
- "No plastic cafe and recycling used plastics" from Korea;
- "Green traveler Green influencer project" form Mongolia;
- "Clean, Green and be a Greener" from Myitkyina, Myanmar;
- "Raising Climate Literacy" from Myanmar;
- "KALAKALikasan, Exchange for a Change" from Makati, Philippines;
- "Make travel green again!" from Taichung, Taiwan;
- "Creating a Second Life for Second-hand Clothes" from Tainan, Taiwan.
Green Ambassadors in a Post-COVID19 Society
Green Ambassadors Training 2021
After the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 13, 2020 declared novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) a pandemic, humankind are pushed into an ongoing global crisis that presents substantial challenges to different socio-ecological systems, with clear impacts on many aspects of the environment. As the pandemic continues to unfold, the direct and indirect effects to human lives and the global economy are also affecting the environment and climate. Thus, the Green Ambassadors Training held last 17-22 March 2021 focused on the theme, ‘Green Ambassadors in a Post-COVID19 Society’.
The training which was participated by around 70 YMCA staff, leaders, volunteers and youth from the YMCAs of China, Hong Kong SAR, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand is part of the region’s continued efforts to combat climate change. Interested networks like schools related to YMCA work on Climate Change and Environment also joined the training. In the current context of COVID19 and as preparation to the post-pandemic society, the training was specifically designed to reflect on the personal and organizational practices that contribute either to the positive or negative impacts of the crisis to environment and climate. It also looked into potential ways to contribute in rebuilding resilient societies with nature-based solutions.
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WHAT’S IN A MEAL: Sustainable Agriculture in an age of Global Warming
Last Updated (Tuesday, 30 March 2021 17:42)
On April 22nd the world will celebrate Earth Day! YMCA globally is an organization that represents the youth. And if the youth have anything to say on the matter, it is that the World is moving too slowly in conserving Earth, the only Earth that we have to call home. Greta Thunberg said, “I don't want you to be hopeful, I want you to panic”. Indeed, she isn’t wrong. Science is predicting a cataclysmic end to humanity and the world as we know it and global policy just isn’t taking it seriously enough. April 22nd should not be “Earth Day”, everyday MUST be “Earth Day” if in the future of existence, we want people to be present to celebrate it.
While climate change is a new concept in the world of science, humanity has been changing the world, changing the environment, and changing climate from the early days of civilization, even before. Newer studies show that even the Sahara Desert, the largest expanse of barren desert in the world, was not authored by nature alone, but had humans to nudge along its ultimate descent into non-life.
Of course, this early alternation of the course of nature was not in the “industrial scale” that followed the aptly named “industrial revolution”, but vitiate agriculture and overgrazing that transformed lush plains into vast wasteland. Even today, cattle farming is the highest contributor to the global release of methane gas. In 2020, the Scientific Advice Mechanism of the European Union established that the food system as a whole contributes more than 37% of the global green-house gas emission and this figure is on a steady rise. Furthermore, modern use of insecticides, pesticides and soil fertilizer is poisoning not only our farms the world-over, but us and our children. Each day we feed into our body hundreds of non-degrading chemicals that cause a host of diseases. In addition to all our designed modern ways of killing mother-nature, nutrient loss and desertification continue to pose an ever-current threat, just as it did 10 millennia ago in the Sahara plains. This prolonged homicide of mother-nature is only compounded by the evils vetted on our fellow human beings. Exploitation, modern slavery, poverty, sickness and death are all a part and parcel of the global food-network and little if anything is done because after all food is a necessity and which man is willing to starve on a matter of principle.
Read more: WHAT’S IN A MEAL: Sustainable Agriculture in an age of Global Warming
EarthHour2EarthDay: 27 Day Challenge
Last Updated (Friday, 26 March 2021 19:17)
From Earth Hour to Earth Day
It is no longer just a theory... climate change and global warming is a reality. In fact, we are now entering a period of climate emergency.
The Challenge 21 implores us to: Defend God’s creation against all that would destroy it and preserving and protecting the earth’s resources for coming generations.
The APAY is committed to combat climate emergency and we are extending our invitation for you to join us. As they say, little drops of water make a mighty ocean.
For the next 27 days... from Earth Hour till Earth Day... we would to invite you to commit yourself to some small simple acts of personal mitigation and personal adaption for climate change.
Each evening, APAY will upload a challenge for us to commit for the following day. We hope you will join us in expressing your commitment to combat climate emergency. Let us all practice together to make a significant impact.
For our first act of commitment together, we will observe the call for Earth Hour. For one hour, from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m., we will turn off all our lights and other non-essential electrical equipment as a symbol of commitment to the planet.
Please post pictures and reports of your personal acts of mitigation and adaptation for climate change to your FB page and add a hashtags to further propogate and promote our campaign. Our official campaign hashtag is #EarthHour2EarthDay .
You may also add other relevant hashtags eg. #noMeatToday , #GreenMonday etc.
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