I certainly didn’t know that the very first World Earth Day was created and organised on April 22, 1970. That’s exactly one year, two months and one day after my birth date. Since then the Earth Day Network has been mobilising over one billion people annually on Earth Day, and every other day, to protect the planet.
Now, I’m no eco-warrior that’s for sure, but I am extremely proud of the planet I call home. It’s a special place and one we must look after now and in the future. Unfortunately, mankind can have a detrimental effect on the planet and it’s something I have first hand experience of.
A life-changing opportunity
I know this seems strange to say but I was lucky to see the impact humans have had on our planet when I visited the Ecuadorian Amazon Rainforest for the first time back in 2010. Randomly my friend Annie had won a competition with Ben & Jerry’s called ‘Fair Trade’. The idea was for an amazing prize you had to do something in return. So Annie (being Annie) dressed up as a cow from the Ben & Jerry’s logo, and jumped out of a plane from ten thousand feet.
The prize she won was a trip to an ecolodge in the Ecuadorian Amazon Rainforest, and she asked me to be her plus one. It was during this trip I really got to see the impact humans and large corporate companies have had on the planet. As we travelled closer to the Rainforest, the oil pipes started to appear. Miles and miles of pipeline pulling oil out from the ground with total disregard for anyone or anything that got in its way.
Then we saw acres upon acres of Rainforest cut down to make way for palm oil plantations. All so that we can shop happily for our toiletries, shampoo, soap, cereals, biscuits and much more. However, what we don’t see is the destruction it leaves behind for those people who call the Rainforest home.
During the trip I was lucky enough to spend time with a number of Amazon tribes, including the Woarani, Secoya and Yasuni. Tribes who had been living in the Rainforest for 500 years. I listened through translation to hear about the first ships that arrived from Portugal and Spain hundreds of years ago. And how those early visitors had brought new diseases such as polio, smallpox and measles.
Diseases that had never existed in the Rainforest until those early visitors and settlers came, which I saw first hand how this had affected the tribe’s people. Then many years later came the oil exploitation from large corporate companies such as Shell and Texaco. Boring deep down into the water table to extract their black gold, while at the same time polluting the people’s drinking water. Again affecting people’s health and causing serious illness as well as birth defects.
It was during that first trip I met an American teacher called Ciara Wirth. She was working with the young people of the Waorani tribe teaching them the Ecuadorian school curriculum. Hundreds of miles from any other school, teaching from a wooden hut in the middle of the Ecuadorian Amazon RainForest.
After spending time with me, Ciara found out about my work for Apple as a Technology Trainer. And before I left, she asked if I would return to run technology workshops with the young people in her class. Of course, it was an offer that was too good to turn down, and so my Amazon project was born.
Bringing stories to life
A year later I was back in the Rainforest with my guide, Jose, delivering camera and editing workshops. I wanted to document how the Woarani tribe lived on a daily basis, and then share these stories with schools I was working with back in the UK.
However, I wouldn’t create these videos… the young people of the Waorani tribe would.
Groups of twos and threes were formed, story boards created and filming began. We captured everything from jungle medicine, hunting, making blow pipes, traditional spears, pottery and using natural dyes for clothing.
After all the videos were filmed and edited, we had a showcase evening in the school hut with an old projector running off a solar battery. One of my favourite ever moments is when I said to Jose “Where is everyone?” His reply was, “don’t worry, they will come.”
At around ten o’clock at night, people from the tribe started to appear from the jungle to watch their young people’s finished videos. It was a moment I will never forget, especially as they tried to work out how the green screen effects worked.
Connecting classrooms across continents
For the next three years I returned to the Rainforest to run technology projects with different tribes. With the Secoya tribe, we ran an iPad project with the young people. It started with pupils from UK primary schools making Book Creator projects. These digital books contained chapters titled ‘Who am I?’, ‘Where do I live?’, ‘Where do I go to school?’ and ‘What are my favourite things?’
Once finished, we packed up the iPads and took them to Ecuador to share with the young people of the Rainforest. This created great interest as they read and listened to the digital books from the UK.
Then it was their turn to create their own digital books, focusing on the same questions. Their answers weren’t so different when it came to their favourite things; like playing football, volleyball and swimming in the river. The young people absolutely loved the process of creating digital books on the iPad that contained images, audio and video.
Once the digital books were finished, and our time in the Rainforest was over, I headed home to share the books with the young people of my UK partner schools. What a fantastic outcome to be able to share the lives of young people living thousands of miles away with school children here in the UK. I was even able to Skype a number of the UK schools while I was in the Amazon Rainforest using a satellite uplink for the wifi connection.
Sharing my experiences back home
Once back in the UK I would visit my partner schools to deliver presentations during their assemblies. I remember the pupils were always full of questions about the wildlife I had experienced during my time in the Rainforest. Such an amazing ecosystem where I was lucky enough to see and photograph species such as an Amazon Otter, Anteater, Monkey, Tarantula, Scorpion, Snakes, Caiman, Vultures, Woodpeckers and so much more. Wildlife that will only continue to survive and flourish if we look after this beautiful planet we live on.
For me, it comes down to education and giving young people experiences that stay with them. Inspiring them to be the next generation of planet activists who care deeply about the world they live in.
So remember, as World Earth Day approaches, a visit to the Rainforest and making a difference can be just a parachute jump away 🙂