Seven Moms act as the teacher in the kindergarten. After playing games inside the classroom, children were organized to join some outside activities. Ichay, a volunteer from Jakarta Green Monster, whose focus is Community Development, demonstrated to the children how the compost operates. The children were taught the usage of compost and leant the easy way to make it.

It seems that Seven Mons are all great singers. They put their lessons into the lyrics so that children can keep it in minds in joys of singing. You cannot imagine how active the children were when told to clean their hands with lotion!

This is part of the environmental education the children take. Day by day, we can expect that the idea of green would no longer be strange and new to the new generation in Kapuk Muara (Shannon Zhou).

Sahabat Bumi (the leading organizer) together with JGM and Rumah Organik (in responsible for the talk show) held the “Clean Village”, in particular, aiming to raise children’s environmental awareness.

During the first period, Wylda Sari in represent of Jakarta Green Monster guested on the talk show, by effective interaction with the audience, spreading the general knowledge about 3R. Some Families coming to the shopping mall were attracted and found it helpful after seeing the talk show.

After that, several workshops opened. They were to show to the people that the so called waste things can be very useful if we treat it in an imaginative way. Families participated enjoyed themselves in painting, ribbon embroider, paper folding and so forth, and at the mean time, aroused their interests in waste creation.

Waste is one of the main reasons why every rainy seasons Jakarta suffers the flood. Reduce-Reuse-Recycle is the best way we can find to treat the waste. It is only a matter of our willingness and habit (Shannon Zhou).

With the purpose of raising people’s awareness, August 8th, in collaboration with Environmental Ministry and Jakarta Environmental Management Agency (BPLHD), Jakarta Green Monster carried out the first Jakarta Costal Clean-up in which about 1,500 volunteers with a wide range of backgrounds participated.

The Clean Up covers 3 areas. They are Muara Angke Fishing Harbor, Angke-Kapuk Protection Forest and Muara Angke Wildlife Sanctuary. As organizers, JGM members arrived at Muara Angke the night before the action day for plan design. The discussion took a long time and all of them, as it were, only had poor little rest.

As planned, the Clean Up started at 8 am. Volunteers were separated into 3 groups with appointed organizers accompanied. Me and the other intern are in one group in which Eveline played as a leader and an interpreter as well. Volunteers in our groups come from Gandhi International School, St. Nicholas School and Jubille School.

Starting from free and refreshing soda drink, the students soon involved themselves in the Clean Up. I could say this would be the first time for these students to face so much garbage and with so many bizarre kinds! Garbage was to be picked up into different bags: bags with plastic, glass and rubber. At last, when students were told they had picked up the target amount, some of them still lingering on: There is still much garbage left to pick! But, I would say, at least, you have already been aware of it.

The Jakarta Costal Clean Up thus targeted its goal. We can pick 381,4 Kilograms of waste in Angke-Kapuk Protectiction Forest. But still, there’s a long way to go in the road of environmental protection (Shannon Zhou).

The 1st Indonesie Coastal Cleanup supported by government organization such as Environment Ministry, BKSDA DKI Jakarta and BPLDH DKI Jakarta. Cleanup location take place in three locations, there are Suaka Margasatwa Muara Angke, Hutan Lindung Angke Kapuk and Pelelangan Ikan Muara Angke.

This event become a showup momentum to invite urban people to care about their environment. You challanged to join us? Don’t be hesitated, pick up your phone and contact Icay at 021 94425951. Don’t forget to bring your own equipment such as drinking bottle, sniker, hat, private medicine and digital camera. So see you there and Act Now !

But Jakarta lives with a perpetual water crisis that recalls an African proverb: “Filthy water cannot be washed.” For millions of Jakarta residents this is painfully true. There is not enough clean water for daily living, and dirty water, in the form of contamination and floods, brings disease and disaster.

Jakarta loses hundreds of millions of dollars to floods that seem inevitable. Partially caused by man-made garbage that blocks our canals and waterways, they are a painful reminder of a flawed infrastructure. Floodwater, and the almost total lack of a citywide sewage system, causes health problems, leads to lost productivity and destroys property.

Filthy floodwater pollutes the water system, one of many reasons why we can’t drink from the tap, and contaminates groundwater wells that provide up to 30 percent of the city’s water. Those wells, unfortunately, contribute to the gradual sinking of Jakarta, which in turn means that tidal flooding is growing steadily worse.

All of these problems are connected, and there is no simple way to “wash” the crisis clean. Nothing short of firm central and local government leadership, hard work, public participation and lots of money will save us and our city from disaster.

The time to act is now.

Statistics:

- Some parts of Jakarta sink 25cm every year.

- There is 60% less spending on infrastructure as a proportion of GDP than in Suharto era.

- 35 million people are expected to be living and using water in Greater Jakarta by 2020.

- 400,000 liters of waste is dumped in the capital’s rivers or canals every day.

- 140 elephants: the weight of raw sewage that goes into Jakarta’s ground or waterways daily.

- 20% of Jakartans have no access to a toilet.

- Indonesia’s annual economic and health cost due to poor sanitation is $5.8 billion.

Source : The Jakarta Globe

The day two and three, we have some discussions and presentations about Indonesia Green Map and replication in other provinces. One of the result from this occasion is to building capacity, vision and mision within local Green Map community.

In the future, JGM as Jakarta Green Map supporting community, will conduct lake and river survey in Jakarta. It will be result a map that contain about information and nature water reservoir status. And as the part of this plan, JGM will develop an environmental interpreation map for local Suaka Margasatwa Muara Angke with green map method.(AK)

This event is to declare the 12 Tourism Destination Site at North Jakarta. Suaka Margasatwa Muara Angke is one of the destination site. It was declared by Fauzi Bowo, DKI Jakarta Governor.

The ceremonial procesion was showing up the characteristic of each tourism destination site. Tanjung Priok train station represented by PT KAI uniformed officer, Kelapa Gading shoping and culinary central represented by people that wearing Chinese custome. Kampung Marunda, represented by Betawi people. Suaka Margasatwa Muara Angke (SMMA) as a conservation area represented by Ceni.

Ceni (Bubut Jawa) is the endangered species in SMMA. To conserve it, this bird become SMMA mascot. Ceni showed up in front of Fauzi Bowo and audience. With this ceremony, we hope SMMA will have more appreciation from government and Jakarta people to keep conserve and care about this area.

Decision to make SMMA become tourism destination in North Jakarta coast will promote this area automatically. With the increasing amount of visitor to SMMA, the next question is the SMMA management ready to hold this status? (k-v)

Mostly children learned through playing. The traditional games were Bekel played with a ball and rocks, Congklak played with rocks and a board with holes, Galasin which is a team play game. Besides those activities, Jakarta Green Monster (JGM) provided good opportunity to learn how to make use of trashes. Children used their imagination to make toys out of pet bottles, boxes etc.

The sponsors were Green Radio, JGM, Aqua, yes tv and Papa Ron’s pizza opened a stand there. Aqua supplied free bottled water. Green Radio provided snacks in box. Those containers were used as materials for learning later.  In the afternoon, Green Radio had a quiz time for children. Then, JGM gave an interesting exhibition: making paper out of old newspapers. Children were interested in how papers can be made out of newspapers and later they experienced the process. In other part, some other JGM members cooperated with children to make use of pet bottles again.

To conclude, such occasion was important for children to learn and become familiar with environmental issues. Although it is always difficult to keep children’s attention. This exhibition succeeded in it and showed how it can be achieved. Having fun at the same time learning through interesting workshops worked well in terms of attracting attention from children. Such continuous effort is essential for it will result in more awareness among citizen in Jakarta.  (Kentaro Takeno)

All of the panelists discussed about the forest condition, based on organization vision. GreenPeace discussed about forest in world context. WALHI as national organization, present the Indonesia’s forest condition. Ministry of Environment talked about policy and JGM as voluntary based community explored the urban forest of Jakarta regarding to our experiences.

The participants are very interested with the presentation from the panelists. They have so many questions. Such as, what kind of partnership that was built between the environment organization, interaction and communication with government, palm oil issue, pulp factory. And the hot issue is global warming.

To conserve our forest, it should be done together. And it could be start from the simple one. Let’s keep our spirit to save our forest.