Pohnpei's MC Team reaches out!
Story by Mary-Linda Salvador, Conservation Society of Pohnpei
from Volume 11 of Official Micronesia Challenge Newsletter
from Volume 11 of Official Micronesia Challenge Newsletter
On
September 20, 2012, Kolonia Town celebrated the anniversary of their
constitution. The Micronesia Challenge communications team eagarly
started the day before with preparations for the Micronesia
Challenge information booth, getting posters together and setting up
displays on cardboard boxes with printed fact sheets and questionnaires.
Early the following morning, we came together at the event to set up
the tent and put into place all the posters that were prepared the day
before.
What a day it was! The MC communications team gave away pamphlets,
posters and booklets, even free calling cards thanks to our partners
from the office of International Office for Migration (IOM). We also
gave away free sample plants ready to be planted into the ground. This
was possible thanks to our friends from the Division of Forestry, and
they brought sakau (kava), lime trees, papaya trees, and even cinnamon
trees. People flocked around to pick out which trees they wanted to
plant. They enjoyed our posters and pamphlets, as they saw how much
information they could learn, and we gave away nearly all of the posters
and pamphlets.
As
the day's activitities went on, the team didn’t even notice the time as
they were extremely busy with the swarms of children hovering by the
tables trying to get their hands on notebooks and pencils which were
donated by our partners from the Micronesian Image Institue (MII), the
Micronesian Conservation Trust (MCT), and The Nature Conservancy (TNC).
As the children lined up, the team had prepared some simple pictures of
fish and plants and asked the kids to name them and if they did not
know the names, the team was more than glad to share the answer followed
by a short, fun explanation about the fish or plant. The older kids had
to identify environmental issues from pictures prepared by the group.
For the adults, the team prepared a small questionnaire for them to
answer and then we allowed them to choose from the selection of posters
and booklets and pamphlets to take with them. As the day came to an end,
the team had realized that they were extremely exhausted and that we
hadn’t even had lunch - that is how busy the team was during the
celebration of Kolonia’s Constitution day!
Finally, as the evening came and the team was packing everything up,
more kids and adults sopped by to learn about the Micronesia Challenge.
Without a doubt, we were a hit! After that, we happily called it a day!
