Event
Environment Day 2010
“Good environment, good health” was a slogan left by a participant taking part in one of the interactive displays at the Heinrich Böll Foundation Environment Day booth, where thousands of participants attended the two day Environment Day exhibition campaign organised by the Ministry of Environment. Forty exhibition booths of ‘green’ promotion were open to the public from the 31st May to 1st June 2010, where a range of participants attended varying from civil servants, NGO staff, monks, students, journalists, private sector workers and passerby’s from the public.
For the HBF exhibition booth, two main objectives were established. The first was to promote the international and national projects and activities employed by HBF to help reduce the effects of climate change. This was carried out through specially designed banners for the event, a photo exhibition of HBF’s ‘The Boiling Point’, a study carried out in South Africa exploring the damaging impact of climate change on individual livelihoods, as well as a display of HBF climate change publications which visitors could sign up to receive by e-mail. Secondly, was to present an informative exhibition that provided a space for participants to share their knowledge and thoughts on environmental issues, in an as interactive manner as possible. This involved a variety of activities such as: encouraging participants to formulate slogans which they felt matched the message of Environment Day and addressed issues on climate change; writing and allocating captions for pictures which portrayed some of the different impacts of climate change in Cambodia; signing up to HBF Cambodia’s mailing list to receive regular updates and newsletters on new projects and how they can get involved; leaving comments in the guestbook on their thoughts about the general display; and willing participants also took part in brief interviews conducted by the staff, hoping to get a general sense of what they had learnt and what they already knew about climate change.
Overall, 233 participants signed HBF’s guestbook over the two days, where the majority of the comments centred on the interactive element of the booth. These included statements such as “good participation” and “I didn’t know about this, it’s a good chance to think”. Additionally, over 200 visitors participated in leaving captions under the climate change pictures of Cambodia that were on display. Moreover, participants ranged from all ages and backgrounds, a prime example being a group of elders who were visiting from the provinces to specifically take part in the campaigns activities. Although they were illiterate they were keen to be able to express their feelings on environmental issues, particularly as they had witnessed significant changes in Cambodia over their lifetime, which the staff assisted them in doing.
Conscious efforts were made to ensure that the booth produced as little environmental waste as possible, whilst aiming to promote these concepts at the same time. These ranged from: distributing cotton shopping bags to participants so as promote a shift away from plastic bag usage; wasted printed paper was used to print the guestbook; and participants were asked to leave their e-mail addresses in order to receive electronic copies of the HBF publications. Additionally, footage from interviewing members of the public on their perceptions of climate change was previewed at the booth to encourage the participants to partake in a dialogue on the topic.