The Department of Environment and Natural Resources Region 6 (DENR-6) has conducted Dalaw Turo (DT) sessions in four different schools at Boracay Island, Malay Aklan, just recently.
A total of 195 pupils and students namely: fifty-four (54) students from Boracay National High School, forty (40) pupils from Balabag Elementary School both located at Brgy. Balabag, Malay Aklan; forty-nine (49) students from Manoc-manoc National High School, fifty-two (52) pupils and students from Goshen School of Technology and Humanities Inc. both located at Brgy. Manoc-manoc, Malay, Aklan enjoyed the sessions with games, skits and lecturettes.
The DENR-6 Regional Public Affairs Office (RPAO) Chief Artemio Salvador C. Colacion manned a briefing of the Dalaw Turo to different academe personnel to further involve environmental information and protection of biodiversity added to the lessons discussed during classes.
Here in Western Visayas, there are some critically endangered endemic species that might end up vanished if not protected. It is encouraged to teach the children about these local species existence for them to learn how to love and take actions to protect it. “We shouldn’t wait for the time where children will only see pictures of these local species on books due to our lack of discipline and involvement in protection and conservation of these species,” Colacion said.
Each DT session in the island started with participants forming a circle where the DT team leader introduced each member, a Pre-Test was given to gauge the participants, knowledge about environmental laws, issues and concerns, followed by teaching the DT clap and group students into three, representing air, water and land with its designated sound to perform in sync to help them focus and be attentive throughout the session.
The next phase was the mind setting, describing an environment surrounded with trash, tailed by a stage play depicting an environmental issue on waste disposal and a lecture about Ecological Solid Waste Management. It was then followed by a game identifying different kinds of trash to be either biodegradable or non-biodegradable.
Another skit was played and a lecture about biodiversity and its importance, and how to protect and conserve our species and the environment. An activity named Web of Life is played where the participants were given with name tags representing the human, air, water, land and other species to form a web. Using a rope, they connect to each other according to their needs in order for them to live, and one by one, loses grip of the rope to convey a message of slowly deteriorating the ecosystem and to take actions on saving the environment. A Post-test was given to determine the progress of learning attained by the participants.
DENR 6 Regional Executive Director Francisco E. Milla mandates programs such as Dalaw Turo to teach this generation of preserving the environment for a sustainable living and springs hope to the future era.
“I am hopeful that Boracay will be an island resilient to disasters and will also practices zero waste disposal thus I encourage everyone to avoid single use of plastics,” Milla said.
Plastics are amongst of the waste that takes hundreds of years to decompose, thus the DT activity is in connection to Ecological Solid Waste Management or the Republic Act 9003 which is one of the priority programs of the Environment Secretary Roy A. Cimatu.
Dalaw Turo is a non-traditional and participative form of information dissemination raising public awareness on environmental protection for sustainable development. It comes from two words Dalaw means to visit and Turo means to teach. It is a two-hour session that includes environmental lecture, skits and games that aim to interact with the audience and impart a message to take immediate actions on current environmental issues, strengthens environmental laws and protect biodiversity.
