KOTA KINABALU: About 500 schoolchildren in Sweden have raised RM7,000 for mangrove conservation in Sabah.
Grubbe School teacher Claes Emteryd said the schoolchildren, aged between 13 and 16, earned money by cutting grass, painting walls or doing other odd jobs for their grandparents and other elderly people.
“They also collected RM1,000 by bringing recyclable items to collection centres,” he said at the handover of the contribution to Sabah Wetland Conservation Society at the Kota Kinabalu Wetland Centre here.
Emteryd said they got about RM1 for every beverage can.
He said the school had been educating the children on sustainability.
“Mangrove forests are an important part of the world’s ecosystem. This world is big but it is getting smaller. As we live together, what happens in Sabah will impact Sweden, and vice versa,” he said, adding that the annual contribution was part of the Carbon Offsetting project jointly organised by Grubbe School and SM La Salle Tanjung Aru near here since 2011.
Present was SM La Salle Tanjung Aru’s principal Mary Macdalena Komuji.
Emteryd said Swedish children were opting more and more for second-hand items, including clothes, to reduce waste.
Plastic waste, he said, was used to heat homes during winter.
He said more children were also becoming vegetarian to reduce their carbon footprints.