Meeting with the One Academy

I met up with Jane of One Academy yesterday. It was very nice of her to spare me sometime even though she was running on a very tight schedule. Thank you Jane! One Academy is an art and design school. They offer courses like multimedia design, digital animation, illustration and interior design. You must be wondering how a design school has anything to do with the environment. Well, they had a Go Green Eco-Design competition in June this year and it was held in 1 Utama. 1 Utama was very generous as all funds and venue for display were provided by them. This project is a graduation project where final year students raise fund for their graduation day. There were a lot of cool stuff invented like hamster cage and also a “lamp” from recycle materials! Cool!

One Academy also has an art school for kids call DaVinci Creative Kids. They have about 30 centers nationwide. Recently, they tie up with Kuntum magazine and organize a workshop where they teach kids to make art and crafts from recycle materials. They have also tie up with Tetra Pak in teaching people how to recycle the packaging by turning them into art and crafts.
It was a very short meeting with Jane, but from here, we gather that there are efforts made to educate college student and kids from young. I remember those days when I was in school; during pendidikan seni classes, we were also though how to make crafts from toothpaste boxes, plastic bottles, the chocolate milk boxes, old newspapers and all sort of recyclable materials. We also have recycle campaigns during school time where all students actively bring old newspapers, bottles and aluminum cans from home because it was a battle between classes. The class which has the most junk wins. Then we will sell the items and have a small “makan” session. I still remember once, we even made a national flag from aluminum cans. We colored them and stuck the cans on to the fence to form the national flag. Wow! Come to think of it, recycling was so much more fun back in school.

I am sitting here right now; in my mid 20s wondering why what I learned in school did not turn me into someone who actively recycles. I did not even remember all the efforts until I started writing here. Is it because what I learned from school doesn’t stick in my mind strong enough to turn it into action? Is it because of the gap from school days and now made me forget all about recycling? Or is it because it is very inconvenient to recycle? I wonder…..