Malik being fed cat milk by the keeper!
Wow! I can't believe that it's been over a week since the Sustainability Gala! A massive thank you to everybody that came and supported us and to the people who were there the WHOLE way through.
Now - you may be thinking - what are we going to do now that the Gala is over? I for one have stopped using and consuming products with significantly high levels of Palm Oil (it's really hard to get Palm Oil free sometimes - if the product has "Vegetable Oil" in it you can look at the Saturated Fat levels and if it is higher than 40% it contains Palm Oil). Also, we will be submitting the petition names we collected at the gala into the petition and sending off the "Medical Certificates" (faux Medical Certificates certifying that someone has a Severe Allergic Reaction to human rights abuse, deforestation etc. - created by Ben Dowdle (Director of Unmask Palm Oil Demand Labelling) due to the fact that Palm Oil is not labelled cleary because nobody is allergic to it) to Simon Bridges - the Minister of Consumer Affairs.
Also, we plan to get involved with Unmask Palm Oil - Demand Labelling and keep a look out for Workshops, Zoo visits etc. about Palm Oil awareness so that we can keep making a difference - no matter how small. (Cheesy much).
That's all for now
-Emma F (:
P.S - here is a quote I found that seemed quite fitting: "The miracle isn't that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start" - John Bingham
Wow! So much to tell! Blog updates have been increasingly hard to find time for- we've been so busy!
First and foremost- we were voted Best Overall for Sustainability (in our class) last Wednesday. From their, we went through to the overall judging at the gala last Thursday!! Everyone put together fantastic displays, and it was really exciting telling parents and other members of the community about our project, even though we were a LITTLE tired (we had finished our presentation the night before at Emma F's house). Soon enough, the votes were in. It was really nerve-racking waiting for the prizes to be awarded, but we are very proud and pleased to announce that we recieved the grand prize of BEST OVERALL out of fifty other AMAZING presentations!
Although we are really happy with our award, we decided that we would continue with our campaign after the gala last Thursday. After all- it's making a difference that really counts, and Jaymie, Emma F and I have growen increasingly passionate about this cause!
Please comment below on what part of our project you liked the most, ask questions, or just provide general feedback! It would be AWESOME if you guys could do that and it would really make my day!
-Emma H :)
Hello, Emma F here.
Wow. I cannot believe that in a weeks time, this will all be over. We have accomplished so much and to think that all our work will soon be over is quite saddening. The experiences we have had with eachother were phenominal, our first website, our first behind-the-scenes at a zoo, our first newspaper article. It's all been a blast and we are really proud of everything we've done. But it's not over yet. We still have to collate everything in preparation for the Gala Night on Thursday September 20th. It's amazing how fast the weeks have gone by, it feels like we only just started yesterday. Now all that's left in getting everything ready for our board. Picture will be up soon I promise! (:
-Emma F (:
Hi Everyone,
The past week has been a huge milestone for us in our campaign. We sent a letter to Countdown supermarkets, asking if they would distribute our home-made pamphlets in some of their branches. The pamphlets explain what Palm Oil is, what its consequences are, and they have been designed to promote Countdown's range of Palm Oil-Free products! I have also been hard at work on my video- I will put it up on this website ASAP- I promise!!
We also held our School Talk on Thursday this week. I felt so popular walking through Kimihia (my previous Primary) to cries of 'EMMA', 'Look, It's EMMA, and 'Hi, Good to see you EMMA!!!'. The group we had the privilege of speaking to were really passionate about the environment, and listened really well!! We held a quiz at the end, based on what we had been speaking about in our presentation. The average score was seven out of ten, which proves that all the kids learned lots!!!
Yet ANOTHER exciting event this week was our lunchtime meeting on Friday with a reporter from the Hamilton Press!! It was all very official, with voice recordings and a professional photgrapher. Though I must say I was VERY nervous at the beginning, we answered their questions to the best of our ability and handled ourselves well. Apparently, we are much more mature then your average Year 9!!! The best part of the meeting was the picture taking- a 'photo shoot' you could call it. Jaymie, Emma, and I had heap of fun posing and changing facial expressions. I swear- the guy took HUNDREDS of photographs of us!!!
It's great to see the success our website is having. So far, we have had over 500 views, and nearly 500 unique visitors, from NZ, Australia, and one person from the USA!!!!! Please keep reading, and please comment on our blogs!! We NEED your feedback!!!!
Thanks,
-Emma H :)
Hello, Emma F here.
Right now we are writing up our presentation for Kimihia Primary School on Thursday. We have created a slideshow talking about Palm Oil and what we did at the Zoo. Emma H has created a movie that shows the consequences of Palm Oil and what people can do if the want to make a change. The video is REALLY intense and I can't wait until it is finished! We will post it uo here on the site and on Youtube as well so the link should be up soon. We are really happy with how far we are in our campaign and we think, come gala night, we will be extremely happy with the finished outcome.
Wish us luck (:
-Emma F
The Palm Oil workshop at Auckland Zoo yesterday was everything we could've been hoping for! We learnt so much, and the people we met- Specifically Ben and Tali- are going to be very valuable in giving us tips for our campaign! The workshop was very inspiring and gave us lots of extra information, such as telling us how to go about our campaign and actually get people interested and willing to help, and we were also treated to guest speakers who shared their conservation adventures with us, which was really great, and they had a lot of amazing first hand knowledge and experience, which pulled us in even further and really brought out our opinions about this matter. Despite all of this, the best part for me was definitely when we got up close to the Sumatran tigers and orang utans-Emma F got to see the tigers, and Emma H and I the orang utans!We got to stand outside their feeding rooms while they were fed, and the orang utans (Charlie and Madju) even came up and swung on the cage door, so close that we could reach out our hands and touch them! Then, we got to go into the actual enclosure! (Not while the orang utans were in there, they're too dangerous) We got to hide parcels for them to find in all sorts of places, which they would get to search for in the following orang utan encounter for all zoo patrons to see. It was a really amazing experience, I definitely recommend the Auckland Zoo workshops to anybody that's interested in this topic.
-Jaymie.
P.S, we will be uploading photos from the workshop to our POW page sometime soon (:
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