By Belen Ponferrada Thirkell | Trustee, FPVI
Naduyog an mga Buyog! FPVI partners with local community to promote healthy ecosystem through bee-keeping advocacy!
FPVI isn't just nourishing the physical and mental well-being of the children in our care with healthier meals, education and provision for generally happier and healthier lives than they have known. It is also promoting a healthier environment by helping young people in the community understand that green and clean surroundings with trees and plants and flowers are important to one’s general well-being. And bees are important because they make the flora flourish!
Children found out exactly how bees enable us to live sustainable lives in the recent launching of the first bee-friendly school in the province of Leyte - the Banawang Elementary School located in the smallest barangay (village) of Tunga, which in turn is the smallest town in Leyte. FPVI organized an art program for K to Grade 6 children who painted a mural on the walls fronting the school. Kolor Banwa, a Tacloban-based art group and art students from the Leyte Normal University worked together with the children for the concept of a bee mural. Together they discussed, drew, and mixed and applied colors. The children sang and danced, they were attentive to what adults - bee experts, biodiversity scientists, artists and community advocates - had to say.
“Advocating for bee-friendly spaces rests on all of us. And where best to start than in schools!”, Nonna Ponferrada, FPVI Trustee, told those gathered at the launching event on 17 October 2018. “it is important that children are made aware early on that they too have a responsibility for conservation."
This first initiative ensures the young in the community understand healthy ecosystem and biodiversity, abstract concepts maybe, but now relate-able and right in their school grounds! The next step is to provide opportunities for them to get involved in actual beekeeping in their own home gardens.
"Bees are the lifeblood of the food chain. Partnering in this effort with fellow advocates, in particular, and the community, in general, is very important." -Gary Ayuste, social activist, entrepreneur and owner of BeenGo Farm in Tunga
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