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Spreading books for environmental awareness
New joy: Books on nature are handed out to children
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New joy: Books on nature are handed out to children. Courtesy of green-books.org/ Gerhard Engelbrecht
By distributing books, non-profit organization green-books.org is aiming big ' to empower children to make smarter choices in the future.
The group, set up last year by Czech-born Petr Hindrich, aims to improve environmental awareness by establishing children's eco-libraries and distributing books about nature throughout Indonesia. So far, libraries have been established in Sumatra, Bali, Lombok and Sumbawa.
The organization also holds events, games and activities ' all to foster children's interest in nature and help them understand their environment better.
With the organization, Hindrich also aspires to promote reading, especially in rural areas where access to books is limited.
'As the price of picture books exceeds weekly income, a book culture in the Indonesian countryside is de facto nonexistent. Thus through our activities, we raise public awareness of reading and the concept of reading for pleasure, reading as a hobby,' he says.
'And so most children see colored books for the first time in their life. We believe that interest in reading will empower children to make smarter choices in the future, concerning not only the environment but also poverty, civic engagement, nutrition, gender inequality, malaria and more.'
Hindrich, who has been moving back and forward between the Czech Republic and Indonesia since 2006 and is currently residing in Bali, originally made his way to Indonesia to improve his surfing skills.
He then started to bring children books to Sumba, West Nusa Tenggara, in 2013, and was joined by two of his surf mates ' Tomáš Jirsa and Martin Pokorny. Together, they founded the organization, which has its headquarters in Prague.
Hindrich, who has lived in a remarkable number of countries around the world, including North Korea, said that he became interested in environmentalism after traveling around the world.
He then decided to promote his love of nature.
'While traveling, I noticed that material goods are perishable, that from a certain degree of security finances are not a decisive criterion for happiness. Happier people are not those surrounded by material goods, but those closely connected with nature,' he told The Jakarta Post during an interview.
Currently, green-books.org has many ongoing projects, among which are sourcing funds for eco-libraries in Maluku and Java and cooperating with artists to create educational posters and designing reusable textile tote bags as an alternative to plastic shopping bags. They are also searching for more places to establish libraries.
The three founders, who work alongside three volunteers, are passionate and devoted to their cause, stating that 100 percent of donations go directly to the projects.
Hindrich said environmental awareness was a crucial issue for the country, especially in dealing with deforestation, which is one of the country's biggest environment problems.
Indonesia reportedly has recorded the fastest rate of deforestation since 2000, according to a global map on deforestation, published in the journal Science in November 2013.
According to the study, with a team of researchers from 15 universities and led by the University of Maryland, Indonesia experienced the highest rate of deforestation between 2000 and 2012, from around 10,000 square kilometers per year between 2000 and 2003 to around 20,000 sq km of deforestation per year between 2011 and 2012.
'Deforestation not only exterminates animal and plant species, but also disrupts the entire ecosystem, causes floods, forest and wild fires and the people lose their natural livelihood,' he says.
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The writer is an intern at The Jakarta Post.
