Jakarta, 14 March 2009 – Clean, fresh, and green are the first impressions when people enter SMAN 10 Malang, one of the schools adopted by SF-United Schools Program. It is no wonder that the school was selected to represent East Java in the fourth annual Toyota Eco Youth competition (TEY 4), a program that is designed to create schools to become models for other institutions and public in general in implementing a practical environmental management. At SMAN 10 Malang, the project which should focus on 3R activities: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle was managed by six year-10 students and assisted by two teachers. After a 6-month observation, SMAN 10 Malang successfully won the 2nd runner up of the TEY 4 competition at national level.
The ‘Reduce’ Project covers various activities such as reducing the organic waste and air pollution. In this project, the students have been working together to clear away leaves from the schoolyard to produce organic fertilizers. The school has also encouraged students living within two kilometers to ride bicycles to school and they have also regulated the numbers of cars and motorcycles parking at the yard. Some plants have been added around the school to improve the air quality. This project, moreover, involves another stakeholder, the sellers in the canteen. In order to minimize the use of plastic materials, they wrap the food with banana leaves.
The school works closely with the Municipal Waterworks (PDAM) to provide ready-to-drink water for students. In this case, the school promotes the “Reuse” project by advising students to use refillable water bottles.
The last project, the ‘Recycle’, allows students to be more creative in managing waste. They showed that small things when carried out with great efforts can turn out into something useful. Niken Asih Santjojo, the school principal, said that she was very proud of the students since they could modify waste to many valuable things. For example, they could recycle leaves into compost, produce crafts from plastic trash, make teaching aids for biology class from used papers. And last but not least, they could change the used water from the school canteen for the fish pond. This program was made possible through cooperation with Brawijaya University.
According to Niken, the students participating in these programs, particularly those representing the school in this competition can also improve their grades. They have shown environmentally friendly attitudes, and they learned to give a presentation in English. She claimed that the IGCSE program implemented for grade 10 students have shown a good result. She really thank Sampoerna Foundation for constantly supporting them.
Niken said that the school will try their best to maintain the existing programs and perform even better so that they could join other environmental competitions in the future.
Source : http://www.sampoernafoundation.org/