They knocked on the doors of several houses in a residential complex close to their school, just so they could introduce their environmental project. But only one resident opened her door to them.

“We spent all day trying to get a chance to explain about our project to the residents, but they didn’t let us in; they thought we were salespeople selling products,” recalls 16-year-old Sherynne Sulaiman from St. Laurensia High School in Tangerang, West Java.

At the end of the day, “We only had one old lady who was enthusiastic about our project and allowed us to explain it to her.”

To their audience of one, Sherynne and her friends explained the details of their green project, which focuses on organic domestic waste management.

They showed her on how to transform domestic waste such as leftover vegetables and fruit skins into local microorganisms, which are later used for making compost. They encouraged the woman to use this compost as fertilizer for her garden because it is not only effective, but also cheap and environmentally friendly.

So Sherynne and her friends came up with a new strategy. They gathered a group of housewives in another housing complex and involved them in their project.

This time, they succeeded. And crowning their success was that they came third in the British Council’s 2009 Schools Climate Challenge. The judges believed their creative and innovative project, using the natural resources around them as part of the solution for climate change, could have a positive impact on their community.

“We didn’t expect to win because this project wasn’t for a competition,” Sherynne says. “It was purely for a school project.”

For a competition or not, these young people proved that people really can take real action against the impacts of climate change — and that those actions can start in our own homes or neighborhood.

“We thought that people nowadays are lazy about taking care of their gardens because they don’t want the fuss of having to leave home to buy fertilizer,” Sherynne says. “So we came up with this idea of making our own fertilizer at home, using our domestic waste.”

Just like Sherynne and her friends, the team from SMAN 1 Wringinanom in Gresik, several miles from Surabaya, East Java, embraced the idea of community participation in carrying out their green project. Their project, which focuses on the restoration of the bank of the Surabaya river by developing an agro-forest along the area, won first prize in the competition.

The green team’s concern was that the riverbank had been losing its vegetated areas little by little
because of the construction of factories and houses. They compared it to the situation in their village, Wringinanom, where farmers use the land along the riverbank to grow various crops.

This also prevents the area from being converted into developed land. The comparison gave them the idea that what the farmers were doing could be applied to the banks of the Surabaya river.

The team later worked closely with the people living along the riverbank, as well as with some organizations, to develop an agro-forest in the area. They planted various vegetables, fruits and herbal plants, which they later used to make jamu (herbal medicines).

“We planted mango, jackfruit, tomato, mahogany and herbs like turmeric and curcuma,” says 16-year-old Selfi Yuni Aris, one of the team’s members.

“Residents in the riverbank area have already benefited from the harvest,” she adds.

While the residents enjoy the yield, the school students also benefit from the project as they can use the riverbank as a natural field laboratory. There, they learn about the rich biodiversity of the riverside wetlands. The outcome? They’ve found some 70 kinds of insect.

“We’re so happy we can learn directly from nature,” Selfi says. “We’ve found many new things
like unusual insects we had never seen before.”

Impressed by the group’s green project of saving the natural function of the riverbank, which could also inspire various stakeholders and local government, judges at the British Council named Selfi and her friends winners.

In second place was the green team from SMAN Sukowati in Bali, which took on a project of compost made from jackfruit leaves and vegetable waste. Using the compost at Subak Wos Teben rice field in Batuan Village, the students found the compost cost effective and environmentally friendly.

According to the judges, all the winning teams met the criteria of innovative and creative projects that contribute to efforts against climate change. Their projects were also considered to have economic value to their communities, while at the same time could inspire other communities to carry out similar efforts. In general, the judges said all the winning projects have had a positive impact on schools and people generally.

“We heard from several participants that their schools and communities became actively involved in their projects, which means that this competition has brought big impacts at school and community levels,” says Hugh Moffatt, program director of the British Council, adding there were around 1,000 people involved in this competition.

The competition attracted some 200 proposals, 73 of which were then realized into projects. From those projects, British Council later named 15 finalists, and finally announced the three winners.

Saying that school as a formal institution is the perfect place for raising awareness about climate change, the British Council believes that schools could actually encourage students to actively participate in solving problems related to climate change. And the winning students can testify to that belief.

“Our projects will be continued by our juniors,” say the SMAN Wringinanom team members. “Although the competition is over, it doesn’t mean the project has ended.”

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