One day, Andrea was walking in the forest and playing very happily with her ball. All of a sudden the birds stopped singing and Andrea felt a big wind around her. This forest of majestic trees and crystal-clear water had suddenly become silent. Surprised, Andrea heard a soft voice calling her: Andrea, Andrea...
The child looked around her but could not see who was calling her. Suddenly, she felt a branch of one of these big trees curling around her waist and lifting her right to the top of a very old tree with big tears dropping from it.
Colombia
Montería and Tunja
Montería
At this moment, the beautiful forest began to change. There were no more trees, no more clean rivers or lakes, the fields were black, the singing of birds could no longer be heard. All you could hear was the moaning of a few animals that were still alive. The very frightened little girl asked: Why have they damaged what was so lovely? The old tree answered: because people don't realize what they have and that if they don't value it now they won't have it in the future.
At this moment, Andrea realized that it was the old tree who was talking to her, and it said: I am Minami, the voice of the earth and I want to tell you my sad story.
When I was 10 years old, things were different and the people thought that nature was the most important thing. They farmed the fields, took advantage of my rich gifts, and enjoyed the freshness of my rivers and lakes and the purity of my air. But then a time came when they became very ambitious and selfish. So they forgot to put seeds in my soil, they forgot to take good care of my land, they polluted my water, the destroyed and burned my brothers the trees, they forgot me and stopped loving me... After listening to him, Andrea said: Don't cry, Minami, because I love you and I hope that you will continue to live for many more years.
From that day on, the child paid a visit every day to Minami and his brothers, looked after them and protected them. But one day Andrea heard a voice inside her telling her sadly: "They're coming, I hear their machines, I can't bear it!" Andrea ran quickly to the forest and saw that Minami was no longer there. She became very worried and started to look for him and soon found him, dying, on the edge of a cliff, ready to fall over. Andrea cried when she saw that the woodcutters had already cut off his branches.
As he was lying there suffering, Minami asked the child to help him. What can I do? she asked. Minami replied: Tell my story to all the world so that my voice can be heard again".
And then the tree closed its eyes and died. Twenty years later, Andrea had grown up and was studying environmental education.
She organized a lot of campaigns to make people aware of the importance of nature, so that the voice of Minami would be heard once again.
Tunja
A very long time ago, in a place nobody knew, there was a marvelous little paradise, a placewhere every living thing could reproduce, protected by the hand of the all-powerful God, who had created this place and the earth to preserve the creation. Then people, who wanted to discover with their own hands the benefits of nature without thinking of God, damaged it and then finished it off by destroying the forest, causing fires, polluting the air, etc..
One day, I was with a group of students from the Isabel la Católica school of the district of Montería-Córdoba (Colombia). We had arrived in this unknown place, we had camped and decided to explore every corner of it. We played, sang songs and ate; we threw our rubbish among the trees, cut down small trees and contaminated everything we could touch, especially the water. Suddenly, we heard a soft and peaceful whistling voice that said to us: "That belongs to you, so take care of it."
We were all surprised by these words and it made us think. So we said to each other, we have to go and get help because nature is teaching us something, and we have to protect it because it is the source of life and wisdom.
In fact, we had understood that is important to take care of nature and protect it and we decided to form a team in the club called Defenders of the Environment.
The aim of this club is to get everybody, not just children, to learn how to preserve and not destroy nature.