Start em young

My friends had organized a 2 day youth environmental workshop in Cavite. They had 40 participants and their ages ranged from the youngest being 14 yrs old and the oldest being a priest representative of their environmental organization from their province.

I was looking at them during dinner time and it reminded me of the time when I was still young and unsure of what I wanted to do in my life at that age. I was an 'uhugin' (snot nosed) youngster confused as to what I was going to take in college:

major in voice (no money in that),
tourism (less money),
management (managing money but not mine) or
choose a college that had an environmental course (absolutely no money whatsoever!)

Well ok I guess I had an *inkling* of what I wanted, as I was active in the only environmental club back in high school (I was one of the founding members).
I think God had a hand in this because I missed out on the testing date in UST and I only applied to one other school. To make a long story short, I passed (thankfully) and enrolled in their only environmental program. Did I use it after I graduated?
NO, absolutely not. It was not even what I thought it was going to be. What saved me was the on-job-training that I had with Greenpeace.

Thats when I knew where my calling was. I was 17 then I am 28 now. Ten years to the day and I am still a volunteer with Greenpeace and have been an environmentalist ever since.

Looking at these young people eating their dinner and laughing, I told my friend that they are the FUTURE, the people who would make a difference and continue on with the environmental work that we had only continued in our generation. I wondered silently to my self if they were even aware of the immensity of the burden that their generation had to face and work with to save our world. More like an ant standing on top of a 6x6 tire, unaware of the size of the wheel it was standing on.

It may sound so "up in the air" thinking but if other people had seen what I have seen with the destruction and environmental problems we are facing, you would rather choose not to know. Ignorance is bliss is what they say.

Sometimes looking at reports regarding climate change and its effects, the predicted temperature change, agro-chemical companies tinkering with our food, toxic chemicals being dumped down our waters, whales, sharks, dolphins being hunted and killed as by catch to our dwindling fish supply, a shiver goes down my spine and I would just feel like dying and pleading to be ignorant and dumb,and just NOT KNOW about these things. It makes me want NOT to have children anymore.
If I can just go on and earn money, have a good life, dance my life away every night, worry about clothes and make up, worry about boys and just be a beach bum. It sounds so much more convenient and carefree.
But the 'problem' is *I* do care.
And so I do what I do. Year after year, day after day.

And there isn't any money in this I tell you.

What keeps me going are the rewards of seeing small and big victories, companies cleaning up their toxic mess, giant agro-chemical factories halting their GE experiments, countries saying no to GMOs, communities having their own marine sanctuaries and reporting that there are more fish to catch, making industries accountable, communities segregating their wastes and earning money from it.

Sometimes its like a walk in the park, but most of the time its like running up a hill of peanut butter. Even at home it can get frustrating, (teaching my folks at home to segregate is a pain in the you know what, so I have to be vigilant now and then).

So back to these youngsters. As I said, at that age I didn't know or only had an inkling of what I was going to do with my life back then. I'm glad THEY know at this stage what they want. I say start em young, give the correct values formation, equip them with the knowledge and skills and they have what most old folks don't have or are in danger of losing: HOPE.

I was 17 when I started, I am 28 now. Looking at them, I am confident that the work we started will not be in vain.

I still have hope .