Sat Nam Grounding

Earth Council is an effort for sustainability on the Xavier Micronesia campus. Earth Council strived to bring in environmentalists and sustainability leaders this semester. We were blessed to have Jesuit Environmentalist, Father “Pedro” Warpole, agree to visit from the Philippines. Council met and agreed to change Earth Day/Earth Week efforts to align with the week Father Pedro would be visiting.

2016 Earth Week at Xavier: February 7-13.

We kicked off Earth Week with a night of “Stargazing” from our campus field Saturday night. Since the girls are not on campus during the evenings any other day, many young teenage students found this to be a fun time to fraternize or sneak off. As a chaperone, I spent much of my night chasing down students. Granted, as chaotic as this seemed for Administration, I rather enjoyed the evening.

I am a firm believer that kids should be kids. As much structure as this institution reigns on these children, they do not get much time to just play. Also, not all students joined the chase… over half joined in the Stargazing charade and actually enjoyed it.

The rest of the week was jam-packed with adventure and games and outings:

• Monday – Father Pedro met with classes individually throughout the day on ways they can contribute to a sustainable future.

• Tuesday – Staff met after classes for a meeting with Father Pedro about his hopes and goals for the island.

• Wednesday – Around the noon-hour students and staff gathered in the Student Center for a presentation by Father Pedro on how his research led him to a life of sustainability in the Philippines.

• Thursday – We gathered in the field for a potluck with locals and celebrated the island and its culture after classes.

• Friday – Classed were cancelled. Earth Council pulled together a campus-wide scavenger hunt for tools to use for sustainability.

• Saturday – We went took bus loads of students down into the main town of Tonoas and cleaned the streets with other local schools.

• Sunday – We ended Earth Week with local village clean-up. We divided into groups and each group cleaned up a section of the village. Clean-up completed with over 150 bags of garbage which was shipped out to Australia for disposal.

By the end of the week, we are all motivated to improve agriculture for varieties of banana and taro, to reduce water use and ladle-bathe, and to reduce use of imported goods such as candy and pre-packaged foods. Who knows how long this motivation will last. So many people here are too rooted in this lifestyle of disposing waste along the side of the road.

Early efforts to bury or burn waste were quickly proven inefficient due to the small square footage of the island. There is no where to bury garbage anymore, so it continues to surface. Burning plastics and other materials is too dangerous since people inhabit all areas of the island.

It is our hope that these people and their leadership find a way to continuously export their trash to locations that are able to properly dispose.