CHANGE IS POSSIBLE! HERE'S HOW...

How is it possible for a twenty-year old to be so responsible?

Climate change. Environmental degradation. Serious problems that seem to have no urgent solution. A lot of organizations act on it in the hope of saving the earth from possible extinction. I am no environmental genius to tackle these topics, but I can tell the story of a girl who seemed to have been born with the problem on the earth's physical condition.    

Unlike her mother's time, she has never experienced drinking clean water from natural source. She only knew bottled water, purified water, mineral water, or whatever it is called. Grandparents even use purified water for cooking now. Is it really that serious?

Baby of the 90's. At a young age, she saw Rosing. Yes, the typhoon that caused flood that killed a mother and a child in the neighborhood and made their family go up the attic to save their lives from continuously rising flood water. She saw Ondoy, Reming, and all the other killer typhoons that hit the Philippines. She saw all those and more. She saw how other people lived, she saw how they (mis)managed their trash. She witnessed everything in her community and even outside of it. She is real. Her name is Queen.  

She has never been accustomed to tossing candy wrapper after eating. Seriously, since she learned to eat candy! It would be an exaggeration to say since birth, but true! She even wrote a poem about it when she did her literary folio for the environment during her college freshman year. She practices waste management, using her creativity to lessen the garbage.Talk about bags from used denim, art out of found objects, paper recycling, and yes, writing! She did all that not to do her share of the solution for the earth's dilemma but she just does it naturally. When she became editor-in-chief of the school organ, she published a number of articles that care for the environment. She believes in the power of the pen in changing societies. When she was old enough to see what the world was really like, she became an advocate of the environment even without joining organizations as her top priority was to finish college so that she can do her best afterwards.

Call it inclination, destiny, or passion, she completed Certificate in Forestry, a two-year course that caused some people to raise eyebrows as they were disappointed. It is a course looked down by some misinformed individuals, yet she did not mind those criticisms. She was happy with what she was doing and finished it with flying colors--- then proceeded to Bachelor of science in Forestry. On her third year, she did a research paper with her classmate that produced geo-hazard maps for the town of Lopez, Quezon. Not all municipalities have this kind of map, a very important tool for identifying which areas in the municipality are prone to landslides, flooding, etc.; and which areas are safest to stay into.

Queen is now on her last semester in BSF. After passing the board exam, she will be a full-fledged forester.But before she goes into that, she needs to graduate. And on her last year, her undergraduate thesis is again focused where she had been raised and educated. Is Lopez lucky to have a twenty-year old girl who       investigates the relationship of its topography to natural hazards? What do you think?

Change is possible. Educate all mothers, especially those who are pregnant. Teach them how to teach the fetus. If you think that I am a fool, actually, I am. I just did it to my child, and here is my proof!