TfN Student Teaches Others How to Love the Environment

“In the beginning, God commanded us to be stewards of nature. So our love for nature is one of our expressions of our love for God… If children know how to love nature, they learn how to love God, and will grow as stewards of nature”

One of the biggest challenges that remote communities face is the inability to adapt to their rapidly changing environment, due to their limited knowledge and resources. There was a time when the goods used in these villages were environmentally-friendly, so they could be recycled naturally. But since plastic products began flooding into villages in the last few decades and the knowledge to manage this type of waste did not accompany it, plastics are accumulating everywhere, polluting their pristine rivers, soil and beaches.

Dian, a TransformNation (TfN) graduate from Borneo, recognized this problem and began to ponder how TransformNation graduates could help respond to this issue, since they will be in a position to educate the people in the communities where they teach.  Together with his mentor, Dean, he designed a training program to teach TfN students how to reduce, reuse, and recycle garbage, in order to be good stewards of the environment. “TfN graduates are leaders, educators, and catalysts in the places where they minister. There will be many social issues that they will need to deal with, one of the biggest issues being how the people they serve are affected by the environmental deterioration around them. They need to understand their role as stewards of the environment and be equipped with the “know how” to help solve the problem,” Dean explained.

In order to provide TfN students with the knowledge and skills necessary to preserve nature and managing waste, Dian contacted two organizations to help: a local organization that specializes in river preservation, and a lecturer at a local Art Institute, to help them find creative ways to recycle garbage.  For two whole days, TfN students were involved in cleaning up the river, sorting garbage, and finding creative ways to recycle. At the end of the session, they shared their thoughts and findings.

Elisa, a 4th year TfN student, said that she loved the way they gained knowledge to turn garbage into study tools. “In villages, we don’t have many luxuries to access materials. They taught us how to recycle plastic bags and transform them into interesting objects to use as study tools to teach the children.”

“TfN graduates need to teach children in their villages how to love the environment that God has graciously given to them,” Dian said. He understands that it might be impossible to stop the usage of plastic altogether, but we can start using it wisely and teach children to manage waste by reusing it, in an effort to steward nature. “In the beginning, God commanded us to be stewards of nature. So our love for nature is one of our expressions of our love for God. God knows that the environment is a crucial part of our lives and we depend on it for survival. If children know how to love nature, they learn how to love God, and will grow as stewards of nature.”