Southeast Connects - Schools Networking Session

On 1 March 2011, 3 Environment Club members and 2 teachers represented our school in the Southeast Connects - Schools Networking Session. Schools in the Southeast district sent representatives to this network, where the representatives were to come together and share the Green programmes their schools had. It was a time for exchanging ideas as well as picking up some suggestions. Mr Matthias Yao, Mayor of the Southeast district, was also present to address the questions during the dialogue (Q&A) session.
Here are the reflections the Cedarians:

The Networking Session was very informative on the upcoming events and how we can collaborate on 'green' ideas with other schools. I think that the green portal is a good idea because schools can share ideas and keep track of what they have done thus far. Schools can even gain inspiration from projects done in other schools to make our projects more creative so that fellow students would want to get involved. The portal also shows us areas with more greenery and schools can schedule trips there to learn more about the environment. The Networking Session also provided a Question and Answer section with Minister of South-East District, Mr Matthias Yao Chih, where he would answer questions about our concerns of the environment. I think that was really helpful as our answers would be replied just then and we could clarify anything we had in mind.Jasminejeet, 2O

The network has really changed my mindset on how much people actually care for the environment. Seeing that so many people actually care about the environment and do so many things to help save the environment, I'm greatly inspired by that and also want to do my best for the environment too.
Li Yuan 2M

I find that this networking session had been very beneficial and enriching. I realised that even though Cedar is really 'green', Cedarians are still unable to change their style of living. Also, Cedarians live rather comfortably and they would not really have thought about green living. Thus, we need to work harder to convince Cedarians to be personally motivated to go green. I learnt that we should do more outreach, not only to our Cedarians, but also to other youths and children. For example, Tanjong Katong Girls' School planned workshops to reach out to young children, so that they can help to cultivate the habit of green living in them. I find that they truly think out of the box, as many of us would not have thought of working with younger children. Cultivating green living in little children would be successful as they would have experienced so much of that 'comfortable living'. I also learnt that there are many organisations that would be willing to work with schools to promote green living. It would also be good to approach them for some help if necessary. Organisations like NEA and Southeast CDC also hope to assist schools not only through funding, but also through other ways. I am very glad to have been given this opportunity to represent the school in this networking session and I hope that I can further contribute to the Environment Club as well as the Cedar Green Plan. Grace Khoo, 2M  

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