“Clean the world; make a better place for you and for me and the entire human race. There are people littering. If you care enough for environment, make a better place for you and for me….”

Awareness of Indonesian people to throw the rubbish into the garbage bin is still too low. A view of abundance of rubbish in a certain place is common here. That’s ashamed indeed!

That is why the idea of organizing a work camp in Gedong Songo Temple was raised; moreover Gedong Songo Temple is one of famous touristic places in Central Java.

The first project of BWC IIWC and SIW took place in that area with the project of environment. We, twenty one volunteers from Holland and Indonesia, worked together to make betterment in that area.

What we did maybe is not something sophisticated. We just had awareness, care, and willingness. People may see our project as a simple plan, yet actually it contributes more that they think.

In the beginning of our work there, we started to clean the area of the temple by taking the rubbish and put it in the plastic bag. To attract more attention of the visitors, we put environmental signs written on the paper on our body. It was quite effective since the Dutch volunteers did not need to speak Bahasa Indonesia to warn the visitors to clean the environment. Most of the visitor just smiled or laughed when they saw us. Even some people asked to take picture together with us (not us…just Dutch volunteers, haahw)

Having cleaning the temple area, painting and placing the garbage bins was the next agenda. We painted about 25 garbage bins with our own design. It did not really look nice though!!!! But the function is more than its pattern, so it’s OK! Then, we put them in surrounding the temple by using cement.

Besides physical work, we also had done campaign about environment. We visited the elementary school to disseminate the idea of environmental sustainability, to plant trees together, and to hold drawing competition regarding environment.

The other activities are meeting with local government, market day, and cooking with local mother. Meeting with local governments was held in Balai Dusun (village office). As usual, we met a lot of leaders and listened to their long speech that contains welcoming speech, apologize, and bla-bla-bla…. D

Afterwards, we had occasion to visit the traditional market. We went there by opened-cap car (is It correct spelling?) while sang loudly. For me it seemed like a parade of football champion, yeyeyey :D

In closing, we held environmental campaign on the stage in the Gedong Songo Temple. We performed drama about environment in Bahasa Indonesia with the actors: Mark as Paijo, Sander as a garbage, Lovi as an angle, Bas and Toto as the devils, and Dwi as a narrator. Also, we had environmental dancing (Jourine, Gangga, Janine, Tabitha, Madelon, and Floor who supposed to be there). Apart from that all we presented fashion show and song. We made our own costume from plastic, paper, and other recycle materials. Through this fashion garbage show, we’d like to demonstrate that garbage is not merely useless, but it also has plus point if it can be recycled.

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Staying in Gedong Songo is so peaceful and enjoyable. You will feel like you are bestead by such beautiful nature ad scenery. When you are there, you’ll find yourself standing as high as other volcanoes and mountains. As if you can reach the sky. Also, you’ll ascertain cold fresh air, cold water, cool people, and large multifunction public bathroom where you can find out half-naked mothers and really naked old men taking a bath. Freezing in the night with loud snore as a melody to sleep used to convoy us to sleep. Small narrow home really make us close to each other :D