Japanese Organization tells Kids, "Create Your Future"
Friday, September 9, 2005 Posted: 02:07 PM JST
The Japanese NGO Japan for Sustainability (JFS) has launched a "Create Your Future" web site for kids. The site's aim is "to encourage children worldwide to take interest in and gain an understanding of environmental issues, and to think and act independently in response."
"Through this site," says Project Manager Junko Edahiro, "we emphasize the concept of taking a creative approach towards the realization of a more ecological future on our planet unrestrained by conventional ideas, and we aim to introduce innovative ways of thinking to support concrete methods for sustainable living."
Web sites oriented toward children that provide current information about the environment are not new. But Edahiro believes their site is different. "Our Kids' “Create Your Future” web site not only explains the current state and causes of environmental destruction, but also features proposals for revolutionizing our approach to creating a sustainable future."
Twelve ‘New Ideas for the Earth’ are introduced on the Web site’s main page, such as "How to get what we want without buying things" and "How to create a city without automobiles." The site also explains the environmental problems that humanity faces today. "We explain environmental issues under such familiar topics as water, trees and food in the section, ‘Today's Earth, Our Future’. We also include worksheets that can be downloaded and cartoons that depict an imaginary society of the future."
The source for the material for this site is from the Japanese book, Ima no Chikyu, Bokura no Mirai? Zuuto Summitai Hoshi Dakara (“Our Earth, Our Future − Let’s Take Care of Our Only Home”) written by JFS Co-Chief Executive Junko Edahiro. After publisher PHP Institute consented to present the English version of this book to the public, translation work was carried out by JFS volunteers. New information is scheduled to appear every month. The book's illustrator, Sachiko Tenmyo, provided illustrations for the site.
"We would be glad," says Edahiro, "if our message for the children of the world to stay determined and challenge the deteriorating conditions of our planet, reaches as many youths as possible."
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