KOTA KINABALU: A top secondary school in Sabah is enhancing its effort to raise environmental awareness among the communities through a tree planting programme.
SM St Michael Penampang hopes their effort to plant the trees will meet the national goal of 100 million trees in five years.
"Deforestation is one of the biggest environment challenges that we are currently facing. As an educational institution, it is important to impart knowledge about current environmental issues not just to students, but also to the community.
"Therefore, St Michael's Penampang Secondary School being the trophy holder and award bearer of the 'Sekolah Lestari, Mentor SERASI and Eco-School', organised a programme to help communities better understand about current issues that are happening in our environment and also how they can play their role to preserve Mother Nature.
"The school is enhancing its effort to raise environmental awareness among the communities by supporting The Malaysia Greening Programme: Plant 100 million trees campaign, which is a five-year-long campaign initiated by the Energy and Natural Resources Ministry," said school principal, Jennifer Asing.
Jennifer said the programme is a collaboration with Sabah Environmental Department (SED), Sabah Environmental Protection Department (SEPD), Sabah Forestry Department (SFD), Department of Irrigation and Drainage, Parent Teacher Association of St Michael's Secondary School and communities of Kg Terawi and Kg Babagon in Penampang.
According to Jennifer, apart from enhancing the networking and linkages between the schools, the relevant departments and also the local communities, this programme could also create the awareness on the importance of having a green, clean and sustainable environment.
Some 350 people participated in the recent programme held at Pentas Tagal, Kampung Babagon, Penampang.
This includes the pupils of SK Babagon, SK St. Paul Kolopis and SK Togudon and villagers from Kg. Babagon, Kg. Tempasak, Kg. Madsiang, Kg. Kipouvo, Kg. Togudon and Kg. Noturuss.
There were three talks during this programme, namely 'Environment and our responsibility, 'The Importance of the forest' and 'Recycling and Solid Waste Segregation' before the tree-planting activity.
"Talks were given by the SED officers and SFD, while the latter was carried out by the Water Vision Team 2022 of St Michael's Secondary School, Penampang.
"Besides that, the villagers were also taught how to make homemade candles and eco-bricks.
"As for the children, they participated in a colouring competition. The highlight of the whole programme was the planting of 100 trees where 50 saplings would be planted along the riverbank and the remaining were distributed to the villagers. They were given two saplings for each family, which would be planted at their respective areas," she said.
"Since we are back on the move, we have many other programmes on environmental conservation and awareness in store. This is just the beginning."
On another note, Jennifer also highlighted the school's campaign called 'MyTapau from Home'.
"This campaign was first introduced in our school on April 18, 2022. It aims to teach everyone to avoid using or buying plastic throwaways such as plastic bottles, spoons, straws, food packaging in the canteen, but instead, everyone should bring their own spoons, containers and bottles from home," she said.
