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