Kampung Cirendeu Kids at British International School!

Every two weeks, from March to July 2007, children of the trashpickers from Kampung Cirendeu get a chance to visit the British International School and learn new things there, together with BIS students.

BIS has developed a Program through which these kids get to learn something new in a fun way on every visit, while affording them the opportunity to deepen their friendships at the same time. The program includes 21 children (9 girls and 12 boys) from Kampung Cirendeu, and BIS students from grades 3 and 4.

On one visit, the children learned to use the computer and develop their own autobiographies. Another time, they had fun learning how to cook pancakes…and then eating them together afterwards!

The teachers also guide them through painting lessons and arts & crafts, which most children thoroughly enjoy.

The Kampung Cirendeu kids love the Program. For them, this is a rare opportunity and they are very grateful. As for the BIS students, they are happy to have more Indonesian friends to practice their “Bahasa Indonesia” on! Kids are kids, innocent, genuine and affectionate, no matter their background.

XSProject hopes that BIS will come up with other such interesting programs in the future, providing its students with the continued opportunity to get to know, and learn to share with, other children who may not as fortunate as they are. This sort of awareness will help them grow up into considerate and caring adults.

Fruit Friend

You may be wondering what “Fruit Friend” means. If you’ve read through our blog, you will know that XSProject helps a community of trash pickers who live in Kampung Cirendeu, a slum area in South Jakarta.

When we delivered our presentation on garbage, the environment and the 3R’s to BIS students, we also told them about the trash pickers’ community in Kampung Cirendeu. A couple of weeks later, BIS contacted us and expressed an interest in conducting a program called “Fruit Friend” for the Kampung Cirendeu children.

The program has two goals. Internally, it aims at exposing BIS students to the fact that there are people out there who are not as lucky as they are, while giving them an opportunity to help others. Externally, it is an outreach effort, as BIS wants to take part in providing better nutrition for the children in Kampung Cirendeu.

Here’s how it works: BIS provides its students with a list of names of the Kampung Cirendeu children. The students then choose one of the names off the list, as the child they will give the fruit to. This gives the BIS students and the Kampung children a chance to get to know each other one-on-one. The Kampung Cirendeu kids also get to choose what kind of fruit they’d like to taste.

This is such a unique program! It has successfully built a strong bond between the BIS students and the kids in Kampung Cirendeu. We’ve been told that every Friday, after school hours, the BIS kids can’t wait to visit Kampung Cirendeu for the “Fruit Friend” program and meet their new friends!

The “Fruit Friend” program ran from March to July 2007.

Partnering with the British International School

One of XSProject’s core objectives has been to take our recycling program to schools, in an effort to create environmental awareness among school children. Imagine our delight, when Paul Starkie, Head of Academics at the British International School, Jakarta, called to ask if we could deliver a presentation on our recycling programs to his students!

So, there we were, on March 30th, 2007, sharing information with around 300 students from Grades 1–3 on the dangers of plastic trash to the environment. We also told them about simple things we can all do to reduce the problem. The School Assembly Hall was full of kids attentively listening to our presentation; it was so encouraging to see the enthusiasm on their bright young faces. We’re hoping that these children will take on the mission of doing their bit to save the environment, by collecting re-usable plastic trash in their homes, reducing the use of plastic bags and spreading the 3R’s message to their friends.

Best of all, Mr. Starkie was happy to collaborate with us on the Green Spot program, which would involve all students, by encouraging them to collect empty washing soap and detergent pouches from home and dropping them into the Green Spot bins provided at school. The students seemed very enthusiastic about the Green Spot program, another very encouraging sign for us!

That day, we returned to the XSProject workshop in a very upbeat frame of mind, with the hope that our partnership with BIS would grow bigger, better and stronger, and continue to engage BIS students in a meaningful way.

Understand and Create: A Program by XSProject and CSIV

31 March 2007 was a special day for us. We held an event with CSIV (Children International Summer Village), an independent, non-profit volunteer organisation promoting peace education and cross-cultural friendship. We took 100 children, between 10 to 15 years old, to Pintu Air Manggarai and Kampung Pemulung in Cirendeu to show how trash clogs up rivers and to witness the life of trash pickers.

The objective was to provide kids a picture of environmental issues and the plight of the less advantaged, and how each of us can do something about it. A small step can make a difference.

We explained how waste pollutes our environment. After this, we divided the participants into 10 groups in which they had to choose their own leader. In Kampung Pemulung, each group had a chance to sit together with one family to get more information on anything they wanted to know.

After spending a couple of hours with the family of the trash pickers, we returned to the appointed base camp at Arcadia Building. Here the kids were again separated into groups and given three different assignments.

Group 1 had to learn to wash and cut the plastic packaging and create one of XSProject’s products out of it. There were 3 options of products that they had to create, which were: Cut Bag Small, Vital Statistics and Agenda Cover. It was great to see their enthusiasm when doing the assignment!

Group 2 had to create something new that could be useful for our day-to-day activity out of garbage. This was not an easy task as it forced them to be creative and innovative. They, however, were keen in completing the task and imagined themselves as designers.

Group 3 was the noisiest since they had to learn to create music ensemble using garbage, such as water gallon, pots, pans and buckets! It was indeed a lot of fun and all group members had a great time!

At the end of the day, each group had to do a presentation explaining the products they created and what they learned got from the trash pickers. All participants said that they learned a lot from this activity. It also made them aware that they should reduce the use of plastic and reuse it instead to help create a better living environment… Again, a small step can make a difference.

After a long wait, finally, some water for the kampung

The XSProject Foundation and its founder, Ann Wizer, are celebrating the 5^th birthday of XSProject by donating a much needed and long awaited water pump to the kampung or village of our dedicated trash pickers. Many of these people, including Bapak Salim have been with us from the beginning when Ann started XSProject in January 2002. During our 5 year relationship they have been forced to move 3 times and were living, along with their trash at a site with only one hand pump and one toilet.

The waterpump provides water for cooking and drinking and saves the community a little money since they used to buy clean water. The pump also directs water to the shared toilet where previously water would have to be carried in by hand.

The money for the new water pump came from the sale of Ann’s art furniture and is a small way to finally give back to these dedicated and hard working people, to ease their difficult lives – just a little.

See our bags at the Expohogar show in Barcelona

Our distributor for Spain, Portugal and Andorra, +D2, will be showing our products at the Expohogar design trade show in Barcelona this Feb 2 - 7. Come see our bags at +D2's stand in FERIA GRAN VIA 2, PUNT 6 (The design area of the show). See you there!

Tote Bag becomes kangaroo pouch

This picture was sent to us by our Agent in Australia, Cassandra Schultz.

Cassandra was on a 3000km driving trek from Alice Springs to the coast of Australia when she saw a dead kangaroo mother on the road, with its baby's legs sticking out and kicking. She stopped and pulled her out...rolled her up in a rug and jumped back in the car.....and then thought 'now what!!!’ She was miles from anywhere, so XSProject’s tote bag became an impromptu instant mum’s pouch... Cassandra named the baby kangaroo Widget and she is thriving at a wildlife rehab group.

XSProject Europe is now Open

We are happy to announce that www.xsproject.eu is now online. We are still refining the text and adding pictures here and there, but the SHOP is open for business. The store is managed by our friends at Page1 media based in France. Check it out !

XSProject bags for Grist fundraiser

XSProject will be providing 10 Kitchen Sink bags for Grist’s fundraiser. Grist.org is the most read daily environmental news source in the US, an online service with a fresh approach to green news and community best captured in their tagline “gloom and doom with a sense of humor.”

They need to raise $75,000 for "New Year's Solutions," their upcoming stories and columns about practical, you-and-me solutions to the climate crisis and other green challenges. Everyone who pledges $100 will be in the running for free "green" products. We are only too happy to offer the winners a Kitchen Sink bag of their choice. And we’re not complaining about the exposure either….

Check out our (temporary) U.S. gallery of these individually unique all purpose shoulder bags. Our EUROPEAN e-store is NOW OPEN ! Check out www.xsproject.eu. The U.S. store will open soon. So, please check back often for more info.

New to XSProject ? Scroll down and see the video to find out more about what we do...