Kermit the frog is known for one particularly famous line: ”It ain’t easy being green”.
This may be the case for Kermit but when it comes to being environmentally ‘green’ - it really can be easy.
As a Seneca Green Intern over the past few months, part of my placement was to support Softchoice with sustainability-related initiatives. During this time, I attended a few of the company’s Lunch ‘n’ Learns and noticed that Softchoice offers tasty meals for employees to enjoy when they learn about the latest and greatest in the IT world. Unfortunately, like many catered meetings, they tend to produce large amounts of waste – plates, cutlerly, containers and leftover food. Continue reading »
Children are inspirational: They are resilient and whatever life throws at them, they take it in stride. They also look towards the future rather than harping on the past.
The building adjacent to our guesthouse in Bali is owned by a local church. From afar, its majestic columns and polished tile stand in stark contrast to the rice fields that surround most of the island’s interior. Much like Bali itself though, there are constant reminders that this is purely aesthetic. Small rodents call this building home, and share the space with roaches and a family of birds, who disappear into the light fixtures each night. This duality is essentially why we chose Bali as our project location. 
The Widhya Asih Foundation is a collection of 7 different orphanages and one office location spread out across the entire island of Bali. Since they are so spread out, we often start our days waking up early for breakfast and then heading out to one of the sites which can be anywhere from 45 minutes to three hours away. I have found this to be a great way to see the whole island even if it is only from a car window as we pass through towns. I would hardly call these drives relaxing though, as these roads have some of the craziest drivers I have ever seen. One of the locations we went to today, Bangli, is still a construction site. They have 25 kids at a temporary site nearby which is an old restaurant that contains two large dorm rooms. The plan is to have the new site up by June and they also would like to at least double the amount of kids they can take in as well. Bangli has quickly gathered a reputation among our group for being the most challenging site you can visit. As much as Bangli is physically exhausting, it is just as much mentally exhausting. 
How do you measure if you have a good life, or if you’re happy? If you asked most North American’s that question, their answers would be all across the board. Perhaps it’s the ability to buy a new car, or graduate from high school or college. Maybe it’s a new house or that boat you always dreamed of.
Bali has a way of wowing you with the beautiful scenery and the facade that you’re exposed to traveling around the countryside. Not everyone seems poor. In fact, poverty is not as in your face as I expected. As we drove down the roads, we saw small, road-side family businesses, service shops for scooters, and stores selling building supplies and wood carvings.
If you had to prioritize your list of life’s concerns, where would you place your personal health on that list? For many, it’s most likely somewhere near the top. Unfortunately, for many of the Balinese people, life presents so many other concerns that health usually falls to the bottom.
Wednesday night we went to 
Behind our guest house the rice paddies go for miles, flowing until they come to a ridge of mountains in the distance. Workers dot the landscape, stooping as they labor. They cut the rice by hand while piles of grass smolder here and there, wafting clouds of smoke that just hang in the air.
