For the fourth consecutive year, Masarang was visited by high school students from five International Schools from Hong Kong in October and November this year. Masarang was happy to receive again more students than the year before, with a total of 91 students (in the ages of 13 to 16 years old) this year. The schools visiting Masarang is a result of the close cooperation with Masarang Hong Kong.
The students stayed in the beautiful Tasikoki Ecolodge and did many activities over the course of one week. They joined the volunteers at Tasikoki during their hard work several mornings, baked traditional sweet snacks with palm sugar, made enrichment for the wildlife, worked on a new enclosure for the turtles at Tasikoki, planted trees and plants, collected many kilograms of waste from the Tasikoki beach and visited the Masarang Sugar Factory as well as the Sea Turtle project.
A new addition to the trip this year was that the students also visited a local school close to Tasikoki. They worked together with the local students to find solutions for the problems of plastic waste. The people of North Sulawesi experience a lot of problems because of all the waste ending up in the seas, including; it increases the mortality rates of the sea life, it causes floods because of clogged drainage systems, it poisons their food and it has negative effects on the scuba diving business.
The students did several exercises on how to reduce, reuse and recycle the waste.
The students not only help Masarang by the work they are doing during their visit, but they also bring a lot of very useful donations for Tasikoki, such as bird seeds and other animal food, gardening tools, used laptops and phones and materials for the education program. Back in Hong Kong the students are also involved in many fundraising activities, such as organising fundraising activities and selling palm sugar snacks, so the school visits are beneficial to Masarang in many ways.
Next year, Masarang projects hope to welcome many more school students from Hong Kong, as well as the first students from Indonesian International Schools.
Thank you for your support.
Dirk-Jan Oudshoorn
If you are interested in visiting Masarang as well or if you know someone who could be interested, please contact Tasikoki via www.Masarang.hk
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