MANILA, Philippines — Around 50 children who attended via Zoom meeting platform learned about the practice of sustainability to help curb climate change in the virtual Inquirer Read-Along session on Saturday.
Held in partnership with Globe At Home, the storytelling session featured actress and host Marlann Flores and professional storytellers Rich Rodriguez and Posh Develos. It was aired live on Inquirer’s Facebook pages.
Flores, a member of #TeamGlobeofGood which promotes sustainable living, read “Bakawan” written by Catherine Yu Untalan, Reena Rae de Leon Sarmiento, and Mae Astrid Tobias and illustrated by Van Zeus Bascon. It is about animals living in a mangrove who become distressed by all the human garbage in their home.
Flores shared ways people can minimize their waste through simple practices.
“We don’t just need less, we need to recycle. With clothes, you don’t have to buy fast fashion all the time, you can use your old clothes or sell them as pre-loved items. There’s so much waste already, so it’s important to reuse things,” she said.
Rodriguez and Develos read together “Si Emang Engkantada at ang Tatlong Haragan” written by Rene Villanueva and illustrated by Wilfredo Pollarco and Alfonso Oñate. It tells the story of an enchantress who teaches three naughty children to care for the environment.
Recounting the message of the story, Rodriguez stressed the importance of practicing sustainability to help save the environment.
“Sustainability is very much equivalent with contentment. I think contentment is the most important virtue today that a lot of people need to learn because if you have that in yourself, you would know how to be sustainable,” Rodriguez said.
Flores also highlighted the value of reading among children in the digital age.
“Nowadays, there is too much information that children can get online so it’s good for them to go back to reading to develop their imagination. Let’s encourage kids to be children again and stay innocent as well as develop their vocabulary and learn to be eloquent,” she said.
Develos added that the joy of reading should be instilled in children by their families.
Student participants and viewers from Facebook also won prepaid WiFi from Globe At Home.
Saturday’s session was opened by Barbie Dapul, Globe At Home’s vice president for Marketing, and was hosted by Inquirer Lifestyle writing editor Ruth Navarra-Mayo.
Launched in 2007, the Inquirer Read-along is a corporate social responsibility project of the company which aims to promote love of reading among children.
/MUF