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The Green Team, Xavier School’s environmental advocacy committee, held its first installment of “ReCYCLE: A Summit on Sustainable Living” last Aug. 19.
The event aimed to encourage safe and eco-friendly means of transportation, particularly biking. ReCYCLE was held at the National Center for Transportation Studies, University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman, and drew over 70 high school students from across Metro Manila.
Workshops
Organized with the UP Bike Share, the architects of the school’s modern bike-sharing system, and Gear Heroes, an advocate of bike safety, skills and fitness, ReCYCLE featured workshops on proper bike safety and practices, and talks on an environmentally sustainable lifestyle.
Targeting beginner and intermediate bikers, it also showcased a basic bike clinic led by John Hendrix of Gear Heroes, as well as a safety seminar by Shawn Lee of UP Bike Share.
Dino Calderon of World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Philippines, who has adopted a zero-waste lifestyle, narrated his experience on the importance of maintaining an eco-friendly, sustainable life.
ReCYCLE culminated with all bikers joining a free tour around the UP Academic Oval. This gave them the chance to apply the skills they had learned.
Another goal of the event was to support UP Bike Share’s advocacy. Through contributions from the Xavier School community, The Green Team was able to donate a number of brand-new bikes to further UP Bike Share’s cause.
While similar activities aimed at biker education have been organized in the past, ReCYCLE is the first of its kind that sought to reach out to high school students.
It represents the growing trend of making eco-friendly activities interesting and informative, as well as easy and fun to integrate in everyday life.