Think green in and outside the school
By Mong Binh in HCMC
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| RMIT Vietnam follows a Reduce-Reuse-Recycle philosophy to create a green environment for its students and staff as well as the community - Photo: Mong Binh |
Ho Thai Binh, president of RMIT Vietnam Environment Club, and members are traveling from college to university in HCMC to promote their just-launched video and photo competition aimed to improve awareness of environmental preservation among young people through simple actions.
The volunteers go out under the scorching sun to talk to the students and encourage them to participate in the “Your Eco-Friendly Day” competition by producing video clips of three to five minutes and photo slides featuring daily-life deeds beneficial to the environment.
Binh told the Daily on Tuesday that the club targeted not only students of RMIT Vietnam but also their counterparts from five universities and colleges in the city, including the HCMC University of Economics.
“It is simple to make entries for our competition,” Binh says. “Individuals and groups of students can make a video clip or a slide of photos highlighting daily-life deeds such as switching off the light when leaving the room and unplugging the television when it is not in use.”
Binh says the conditions are that contestants should illustrate the simple actions so vividly and creatively that the entries will produce clear messages of how to preserve the environment in the most simple and effective ways.
The best video clips and photo slides will be selected for prizes which are worth VND5 million for first, VND2.5 million for second and VND1 million for third.
In addition, the prize-winning entries will be aired at the Saigon South campus of RMIT on the evening of April 17 when the club stages a host of activities and shows with the primary aim to call for students to give a helping hand to make the earth clean and green.
As part of the club’s program to celebrate the upcoming Earth Day, Binh expects some 1,000 students and lecturers of RMIT Vietnam and other tertiary schools in HCMC to join the evening. Last year, a similar event attracted 700 participants, mostly students.
Binh says the majority of participants are students and he thinks these young people can adopt good habits for environmental protection and inspire a great drive for the public to take actions to save the world from going bad because of the increasing impact of climate change.
Believing that actions speak louder than words, the club members are activists for the calls for staff and students to use bicycles and electricity-powered bicycles to travel to school, and these kinds of vehicles are kept free-of-charge in the parking lots.
“As a result, the number of bicycles and electricity-powered bicycles is on the rise at the school,” says Binh, who is following the fourth semester for a Bachelor of Commerce at RMIT Vietnam.
“Save paper – think before you print” is the common slogan that has spread within many foreign and local companies in Vietnam. At RMIT, students and staff are encouraged to use both sides of the sheet.
Members of the RMIT Vietnam Environment Club go within the school to collect paper sheets with one blank side to make them into notebooks for distribution to those in need. “Surprisingly, the demand for such a notebook has increased strongly, but we cannot collect enough paper sheets to make such a notebook because the paper with one blank side is scarce nowadays,” Binh said.
The Environment Club was established nearly two years ago by students at the Saigon South campus of RMIT Vietnam who were inspired by the celebration of Earth Day 2008 and now has clear missions for the short and long terms.
In the short term, the club aims to encourage fellow students to gain an understanding and awareness of pollution and other environmental issues in HCMC as well as global concerns. Its long-term mission is to organize annual activities for Earth Day and Earth Hour and other occasions to help more and more students and people have an increased knowledge about what they can do to protect the environment.
“Every Day is Earth Day” is the slogan that the club promotes in and outside RMIT Vietnam in the hope of keeping the spirit of Earth Day in everyone’s mind so that people together can make a greener earth and create a more sustainable environment.
“Sustainability is a key platform in the development of RMIT Vietnam,” the school says on its website at www.rmit.edu.vn. There, the school also underscores its series of guides and programs to minimize its environmental footprint and provide a safe and green university for student and staff.
“By fostering a green culture within the university community and beyond that encourages staff, students, service providers and the general public to make changes in their day-to-day lives, both at work and at home, we can all help minimize our impact on the environment,” the school says.
Binh notes that every good, simple, daily action counts and benefits the environment, and this is the message the club delivers for each individual to reduce, reuse and recycle goods to make the earth a green place.
The Saigon Times Daily