A more thoughtful birthday party

[Music]

[Applause]

if

you are a kid like me you may be

surprised to see the topic

what don’t tell me your solution for

climate change

is to stop my birthday parties

don’t worry i’m not here for that

today i want to talk to you about a

better way to celebrate our birthdays

you can take care of our environment by

making

small changes to your birthday

celebration

and i would also like to share how i

slowly learned the idea

of a more thoughtful birthday party

my family moved to canada when i was

three years old

play date was one of my first english

words i learned from my classmate

going to my friend’s birthday parties

always made me so excited

so i am not here to stop your birthday

parties

because i do wait for them myself but we

can always use better methods to conduct

them

i first thought about this on my fifth

birthday party

it was held in an art studio

i remember coming home and getting

excited

when i saw my rooms filled with boxes of

presents

i also laughed when i found two exactly

the same gifts

and i was a bit disappointed to find one

gift i already had

with so many gift boxes and wrappings i

started to wonder

is there a better way to celebrate and

avoid such

waste oh

and you had no idea how excited i was

for my sixth birthday

guess what i did my parents gave me two

options a birthday party or

yeah you guessed right a trip to

disneyland

who doesn’t love disneyland

i got very excited and started preparing

for the trip

my mom said reina you can start planning

the trip and write down the experience

when i sat down to read my travel book i

recalled how

scared i was on the roller coasters and

how much

fun it was to play inside legoland well

that writing wasn’t very good

i will be honest with you i felt a

little regret for not choosing presents

but it was the most memorable birth i

had so far

i wish i could go back again

i also learned a lesson sometimes

it is better to have new experience and

go

traveling to a place like disneyland and

have a lot of fun

a year passed and it’s time for another

birthday party

i just discovered how cool science is

and i immediately loved it

i told my mom and we threw a science

themed party

i made some amazing decorations by

myself

and my mom also found some decorations

that we had used before

we hosted the party at home because i

wanted to reduce the use of

non-reusable plates and forks and avoid

the waste of food

before my eighth birthday came i

actually made the perfect plan

i designed an e invitation telling my

friends

not to bring any presents

instead i would appreciate a small

contribution of money

to help support my classroom library

i was proud of my decision and i also

demonstrated

how i grew up to care more about our

environment

unfortunately my birthday was at the

end of march this year and everything

was shut down due to the coved

i didn’t even get the chance to send out

my invitation

my dear friends learn to ask yourself

some questions

first sending out your invitation

be specific about the presence you like

instead of receiving gifts would you

like to try something new

maybe you can set up a fundraising goal

to help the people who may need that

money

i firmly believe that there are many

other ways

that you can make your birthday party a

more meaningful one

one of my mom’s big headaches is to sort

out the little things i receive from the

goodie bags

the reason why i started off with an art

party

is that every friend of mine get to take

home

a special art piece such as a clay work

or

a painting in turn

my friends also have a lot of amazing

ideas

i still have the tie-dye bag from a

birthday party

and a self-decorated apron from a

cupcake decoration party

i planted the flower seats for my

friend’s nature themed party

and do you know what also has less

impact on the earth

maybe just gifting some chocolate or

healthy treats

during this pandemic we all realized

how much we need to respect nature and

how human activities

have been negatively impacting our

precious earth

during the earth hour when i saw all the

lights go off the eiffel tower

i realized that we would be going

towards a dark future if we do not take

action it could result in the extinction

of

human life

even though we are young i believe each

and one of us

must do our part to reduce the negative

impact

on our environment

be more thoughtful in planning your

birthday parties or

any event in your daily life

small efforts create a big change

i understand that the problem did not

start with us

but it can end with us

thank you