TEDStories : What if kids could change the world?
With Melati and Isabel Wijsen (Indonesia) – 2016 – Arte
26 and 52 minutes version. Available in French, English, German
Pollution, corruption, partition… we are running fast down the road to extinction. Plastic, our so called modern world best friend, proves it everyday : we deny the consequences of our actions.
We use up to one thousand billion plastic bags a year for 20 minutes, on average. Most of them survive us by several hundred years. They invade our cities, our landscapes, end up in the sea.
They pile and drift away, kill. Oceans used to be the cradle of life. At this rate, by twenty-fifty, there could more plastic than fish in the sea. This is the silent, odorless outcome of a massive conditioning, our consent.
All of this can be witnessed by and large in Bali, an island of the Indonesian archipelago, one of the most polluting country in the world. Blessed, Bali is hit by natural disasters, floods, droughts. The plastic crisis only makes climate change worse. Island of gods, Bali may turn a lost paradise.
Now, meet two local children, Melati and Isabel Wijsen. At eleven and thirteen years old, the sisters have started an enormous fight to force their government to ban plastic bags on their island.
As kids, they refuse to wait till they are older. As citizens, they prove it is possible to take action and make change happen. They share with us one of their secret, their outstanding school, The Green School. John Hardy, its founder, share with us his incredible journey and vision.
So, could it be that, to change the world, we have to change our children ? More precisely, should we address the way we educate them, the very way we regard them?
Directed by : Flore Vasseur – Images : David Martin et Emmanuel Royer – Sound : Hidayat Syarif – Assistant : Halida Ilahude Leclerc – Production managers : Camille Crozat & Adele Dumour – Post production manager : Florian Lobstein – Produced by Zadig Productions & ARTE GEIE
