2017 Shanghai Roots & Shoots Festival
Dec.7.2017
On November 18th 2017, the annual Shanghai Roots & Shoots (SRS) Festival was successfully held at Shanghai No.8 Senior High School. Altough the weather was a bit freezing, the Festival brought warmth to everybody on site.
Over 40 SRS stundent clubs and corperate parnters showcased their innovative and green ideas. Organic soup and snacks, fun soprts and creative handicraft activities were all too interesting to be missed.
Be Green
Instead producing waste, the 2017 SRS Festival gave away goodie bags filled with second-hand collected from our staff, partners and students. We exchange, and we don’t buy!
Besides, to encourage zero waste, we made soapberry detergents with orange peels.
Be Charitable
2017 was the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development. Partnering with YeTravel, we invited two world-renowned guest speakers to share their stories and thoughts on eco-tourism. The first speaker was Ivan Vallejo Ricaurte, famous mountaineer, who had conquered all 14 mountains higher than 8000 meters without oxygen equipment. The other was Jonathan B. Tourtellot, founding director of Nat Geo Center for Sustainable Development and Nat Geo Fellow Emeritus, who has rich experience in eco-tourism.
Be Recognized
The year 2017 marked the 18th anniversary of Shanghai Roots & Shoots and the 14th anniversary of SRS Festival. More than 8,600 SRS staff, volunteers and partners had participated in this annual celebration.
The 2017 Best Volunteer Award went to Jie Pan, Huanhuan Xu, Nicholas Hwang (SAS Puxi) and Shiyou Qiu (SRS Youth Leadership Council member); the 2017 Best Teacher Advisor Award went to Danny Cai (Star River International School), Natalya Likhacheva (FDIS), and Curtis Young (YCIS Gubei); the 2017 Best Student Club Award went to East China University of Science & Technology, Xishan High School (Wuxi), 2nd Millitary Medical University, Shanghai Minli High School and Shanghai High School International Division; and the 2017 Best On-site Display Award went to Shanghai Huxin High School.
Be Organic
Organics is not only about food. It is more of a lifestyle that is safe, easy-going, environmentally friendly and sustainable. 11 businesses showcased their products and green ideas, including Hora Organic (organic seasonings), BioFarm (organic vegetables), GIVINGBACK (designer bags made from recycled materials), Buy42 (charity supermarket), PerkinElmer (environment monitoring devices), ICORKS (cork products) and LOHAS (green-lifestyle magazine).
There was a colouring puzzle on site to raise the awareness of marine life conservation. A variety of marine animals are facing survival crisis due to global warming and human activities such as pollution and over-fishing. In addition, the colouring postcards with the same pattern were given away to the participants.
The 2017 SRS Festival was not only a celebration of the major achievements in 2017, but also a platform to spread the environmental message.
