Check Out Mora Siregar’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mora Siregar.

Mora, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Ignorance! In one word, that is how my story began.

I grew up in Pandan, Central Tapanuli. As a child, I played with my friends in fields and rivers that were full of discarded plastic. No one ever thought to do anything about it. We were used to living surrounded by trash and by the smell of burning plastic. It was the way things were. We were all ignorant.

When I grew up and was in University I brought my ignorance with me. I remember how every day I would buy apple tea in a plastic bottle. I was living in a compound with my friends and the way we got rid of our plastic waste was to throw it over a wall into a river next to our lodging.  It was a wall of shame but we didn’t know any better and felt no shame at all, we were ignorant. I was not stupid. I was educated and knew the difference between what was dirty and what was clean. So why I was so careless about how I lived – so polluting, so ignorant? My friends and I may have been educated but neither our upbringing or schooling had opened our eyes to see that plastic pollution was a major crisis.

We did not know any better.

Fortunately, when I moved to Bali my eyes were opened by new friends who educated me about the reality of the problem. Suddenly I was able to clearly see the vast amounts of plastic pollution around me. And I decided to do something about it. I changed my own behavior and I became an educator. I was determined to give to children and young people the opportunities, education, and practical solutions that I had lacked in my childhood.

And that is what I now do with MUDFISH NO PLASTIC.

Let me explain how bad the situation is in Indonesia. Plastic pollution is choking our planet and destroying the environment for future generations. Sadly, Indonesia it the world’s second-largest plastic polluter, producing 6.8 million tons of plastic waste per year, with only about 10% of it being recycled. It is clear that Indonesian and local governments are incapable of dealing with the problem. There are three factors that worsen this environmental disaster.

First, Indonesia does not have an effective and efficient waste management system.

Second, Indonesia does not have adequate laws and regulations regarding waste disposal.

And finally, Indonesia schools do not provide a proper education about plastic pollution so the people are ignorant about the problem. As a result plastic pollution is either ignored, or dumped on the land or in the ocean, or burned. The result is the disfigurement of a beautiful environment and an increasing health threat to the people.

That is the problem in Indonesia.  Now, speaking from my own personal experience, I want to talk about the importance of a proper education and how MUDFISH NO PLASTIC is involved. We run educational workshops that teach and empower children and communities to say “NO” to single-use plastic throughout the islands of Indonesia. The workshops are run over 4 days with approximately 25 participants per group. Up to the present we have run over 100 workshops and educated over 2,200 children. In the workshops, we use music, dancing, and art projects to engage the children so that they become more involved and interested in learning about plastic pollution and what they can do about it. As part of the workshops we provide the children with reusable bottles and tote bags and the hosting school or community with water filters and trash bins and connect them with recycling centers. The result is a reduction in the consumption of single-use plastic and the creation of a locally operated  waste management system.  It is our firm belief that when children are given an opportunity to know themselves better and to act in a smarter more responsible they become role models for their parents  and their community.  The practical message we leave with them is they have the power in their own hands to fix the problem!

Currently we are recruiting people to become educators in MUDFISH workshops. We want to be a bigger and more effective organization and we want to reach thousands more people. In order for us to make this happen we need passionate human resources to be our educators,  we need like-minded organizations to collaborate with us, and we need funding to cover our expenses. Basically, and essentially,  MUDFISH NO PLASTIC is about bringing education to disadvantaged communities to fight plastic pollution. We do not have much time, The clock is ticking. We implore everyone to open their eyes, their mind, their heart, and if possible their wallet. We can do this together.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
A rocky road would be a better description!  MUDFISH NO PLASTIC was started in order to combat the lack of awareness of the Indonesian population in general regarding the personal and environmental damage caused by plastic pollution. We have always had to deal with the problem of both ignorance and lack of resources. Most of the rural communities we visit are like the one where I grew, littered with discarded single-use plastic, where you have to step carefully around piles of plastic trash, where large mounds of plastic waste are set on fire filling the air with toxic fumes.  All because of ignorance!

I am aware that changing the mindset of an entire country as large as Indonesia spread across over 17,000 islands is far from an easy task. The main challenges that MUDFISH NO PLASTIC deals with are:

1. The convenience of single-use plastic.
2. The inertia of people who accept the status quo and do nothing about the problem of plastic pollution.
3. The ignorance of the population in general about plastic pollution and how to deal with it, and a lack of education provided by the educational system
4. The lack of effective local waste management systems.

And a major obstacle for our organization is the limited size of our team, and the need for increased public exposure in order to generate more support and funding.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Our major focus are the workshops for children, where we provide a holistic view and understanding of the single-use plastic problem and its connection to our health and the environment, and provide practical solutions to encourage reduced consumption of single-use plastics and the taking of positive actions for responsible waste disposal.

In addition we run Educator Training Programs for school teachers as well as
young adults on how to run Mudfish No Plastic workshops. You can learn more about this at www.mudfishnoplastic.com/post/schools-in-kalimantan-add-plastic-pollution-education-to-curriculum

Another of our programs are Women’s Hygiene Workshops designed to grow a greater understanding of menstrual health and the benefits of alternative reusable menstrual products as well as the environmental and financial advantages of reusable diapers.

We also do Village Clean-Up parades that include music, singing and dancing to engage children and local communities to raise awareness of the plastic pollution problem and the importance of reducing the use of single-use plastic

And there is more, this year we built a Mudfish No Plastic Playground as a free educational resource for the younger local generation to learn about single-use plastic, pollution, waste management, and the environment. A big attraction for the children is that we also offer them classes in English Class, and arts & crafts activities.

What’s next?
Preparing for the long term, MUDFISH NO PLASTIC is already in the process of training an army of educators who will travel throughout Indonesia providing education and practical solutions to children and local communities to say no to single-use plastic.

Our dream is to reach every child in Indonesia, and the only way we can accomplish that is by running educator training programs in remote villages where the need for environmental education is much needed. The participants in our training programs would be educated about plastic pollution and on how to run children’s workshops in their own villages and schools.

The communities that we want to reach out to first include:

– Samosir in North Sumatra, a beautiful island that has the biggest volcanic lake in South East Asia, but is plagued by plastic pollution and the local communities lack of education about plastic pollution.

– Palu in Central Sulawesi, a regency that has been devastated by earthquakes, tsunamis, and floods over the past years that local villages are still recovering from.

– Lembata in East Nusa Tenggara, a beautiful Island with a tradition of shark hunting that lacks resources for young people to learn about the importance of protecting the environment and the impact of plastic pollution on their community.

– Tanjung Bira in South Sulawesi, a beautiful place where they still build “Phinisi” (traditional Indonesian sailing vessels) using hand tools, It is a cultural treasure that also needs an educational program so that the people protect it from pollution.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mudfishnoplastic.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mudfishnoplastic/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mudfishnoplastic/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZipAE2zThSmoCXODFY_iUQ