Children call for change in attitude towards environment

Taking their future into their own hands, the pupils of Banana Island School, Ikoyi, Lagos, have called for urgent action to check the threat of global warming. The children were following the example of a 16-year-old environmental activist, Greta Thunberg, who is leading a global campaign to bring the attention of world leaders, and the United Nations to the danger of climate change.

The pupils, mainly age five and nine visited Shoprite in Lekki, where they delivered especially handwritten letters to the organisation, appealing to it to stop using plastic bags and adopt the use of cloth bags.

The school’s Head Teacher, Moulin Marriot, who led the pupils and other members of staff to Shoprite, explained that the children should not wait for the elders to make the call for a change of behaviour towards the environment, as the future belongs to them and they should care for it.

She said Shoprite was picked because it is one of the places that heavily rely on the use of plastic bags. She said the call became necessary, as the world has experienced a significant rise in global warming.

She said: “In the last few months, young people have really impressed us. They’ve taken this action to try and galvanise everybody to think about the future. Our children want to encourage people to stop using plastic bags in Nigeria. The beach and everywhere are full of unrecyclable plastic bags.

“The children are studying the environment. So, we thought, why don’t we write Shoprite, as they have a lot of shops in Nigeria. They’re one of the biggest users of plastic carrier bags. If we use that as a hook to get the children interested in writing something that they care passionately about, it will be a fantastic opportunity. They designed the posters.”

All the children brought their own reusable cloth bags for shopping at the store.

Eight-year-old Tsemaya Muoyo said: “We want the world to change and we are advising Shoprite to change plastics bags to paper and cloth, because paper can decompose and makes for a healthy environment.”