Allow me to give you an update

Beautify CNMI! continues to be as busy as ever, even if I don't have time to update every single one of our activities on this blog. We continue to have our weekly cleanups on Sunday mornings and sometimes on Saturday mornings; we have started planting trees, so far we have planted 115 Coconuts and 13 Flame Trees; we held a Summer Camp for 15 students; continue to support the Family Fun Night in Koblerville every Friday; cleaned up the lighthouse; had a public meeting concerning turtle conservation; and continue to look for ways to improve the welfare of our pets through proper pet care and veterinary services.

The Fourth of July was a day on, not a day off. About 20 volunteers met up at the Navy Hill Lighthouse for a cleanup.

Then over the weekend we had several cleanups.

On Saturday, Friends of the Mariana Islands led a cleanup of the Garapan Tourist District while DEQ led a cleanup of Pau Pau Beach.

On Sunday, Friends of the Mariana Islands also led a cleanup of Isa Drive, from Java Joe's all the way up to the Botanical Gardens.

We also managed to have some fun this weekend. A group of Beautify CNMI volunteers went night snorkeling in the hopes of seeing the annual coral spawning. We also had a BBQ on July 4th up at the Lighthouse and a goodbye BBQ for Steve and Miwa Nguyen on Sunday.

Thank you, Steve and Miwa!

Steve and Miwa Nguyen have been great supporters of Beautify CNMI! In two days they are leaving Saipan for Texas. Texas? Yeah, Steve's parents are there.

We're going to miss you guys! Thank you for everything you have done for the CNMI!

Environmental Camp wrapup in the Variety

Members of the press attending our Flame Tree planting on Friday morning. This article appeared in the Marianas Variety today. The print edition had a picture of the students, but does not appear on the online edition.

Summer camp student eyes career in environmental protection
By Emmanuel T. Erediano
Variety News Staff

AT least one of the 15 middle school students who participated in the summer camp last week will pursue environmental protection as a career when she graduates from high school.

Sami Birmingham Babauta, 13, who will be with Hopwood Junior High School in the coming school year, is vice president of the Students Action for Viable Environment.
According to counselor Doug Reynolds, Babauta has decided to pursue a career in natural resource conservation.

Babauta, during the final day of the summer camp sponsored by the Mariana Islands Nature Alliance, said the activity aims to educate the youth “about the importance of every effort to protect the environment.”

The students planted flame trees at American Memorial Park before they went to Managaha on Friday afternoon.

They spend the final day of their camp on Managaha Island where they get to learn more about marine life resources.

Babauta added that since camp started on June 25, presenters from MINA, Coastal Resource Management and the Division of Fish and Wildlife discussed with them the importance of tree planting, coral reefs and wet lands.

They also learned about traditional fishing methods and how wastewater is treated at the Commonwealth Utilities Corp.’s wastewater treatment plant and the Division of Environmental Quality’s laboratories.

CRM natural resource planner Kathy Yuknavage told them about the Micronesia Challenge which aims to conserve 30 percent of the region’s near-shore marine resources and 20 percent of terrestrial resources by year 2020.

After the summer camp, which she said gave them a great learning experience, Babauta will have an internship with Beautify CNMI! and plans to hold club meetings at school.

Hopwood science teacher Bree Reynolds said the children had fun while getting hands-on training on a lot of things related to environmental protection.

Marianas Resource Conservation and Development Council’s Angelo Villagomez said they ended the summer camp with barbecue on Managaha.

Micronesia Challenge Summer Camp, Last Day

On Satuday we woke up before the sunrise, went for a swim and fed the kids s'mores and hot dogs for breakfast.

I also crushed Sami's head:

We took the 10:30 AM ferry back to Saipan. It was a great camp, guys! See you next year!

Micronesia Challenge Summer Camp, Day 5

I wrote in my previous post that Thursday was our longest day. Well, we had the kids from 9 AM on Friday until about 12 PM on Saturday, so I guess the final day was our longest day.

And, oh man, was it a long day. I got back to my house at about noon, took a shower, washing my hair about 8 times to get all the sand out, and went to bed. I felt like I had run a marathon. I got up in time to meet Mayumi and the students from Marianas High School National Honor Society for a cleanup of Micro Beach...but only barely.

But enough about my whining.

Friday's activities started at American Memorial Park. The students were transported from Hopwood to AMP in a bus provided by Tasi Tours. Again, thank you a million times, Tasi Tours. Since I live in Garapan, I just met up with them at about 9:45 at the Park.

We met Ranger Nancy at the Park Museum. She gave the kids time to go through the World War II exhibit, then signed them in for the days activities, and gave them a short talk on National Parks and safety.

When I was college I had a professor, Dr. Barry Allen, who posed the following question during one of our lectures, "Who owns the National Parks?" The other students ventured guesses like the Federal Government, the Department of the Interior, and the National Parks Service, to which Dr. Allen pointed directly at a student and said, "No, YOU own the National Parks."

Whoa.

That stuck with me. Ranger Nancy told the kids pretty much the same thing. She told us how lucky we were to have a National Park on Saipan and she explained that is was Our responsibility to take care of Our National Park.

Ranger Nancy took the students through a short walking tour of the Park, leading them towards the site of our tree planting, where we were met by Representative Cinta Kaipat.

I invited Cinta to participate in our tree planting and to talk to the kids about the creation of Beautify CNMI. In introducing Cinta to the kids, I told them that although Cinta was a lawyer and a lawmaker, she had chosen to make the Environment the central focus of her public service to the CNMI. I want the kids to understand that there are many ways to work the environment into your career. Maybe someday the CNMI will even have an environmentalist governor. Maybe.

After her talk, the students presented Cinta with their models of coral reefs. Cinta is going to display them up on Capital Hill for a few weeks...but then she has to give them to Ranger Nancy so that they can be displayed at American Memorial Park.

Then it was time to plant trees! Earlier in the week, Brad Doerr came into camp to teach the kids about tree care and propagation. He came to camp again to help the kids plant six Flame Trees. Thanks, Brad!

Ranger Nancy told us where she wanted the trees planted, then with help from Brad and Rep. Kaipat's staff, we broke up into six groups and dug our holes.

After all of the holes were dug, Brad and I helped each of the groups plant their Flame Tree.

It was time for lunch by the time we finished planting our trees, so we all walked back to the AMP museum and made sandwiches. A big thank you to Boni Gomez for dropping off lunch supplies!

Today was going to be a really long day, so we gave the kids most of the afternoon to relax. Our ferry to Managaha didn't leave until 3:30. We needed the kids to be awake for our night time activities. In hindsight, we should have made the kids run a few laps to tire them out. Oh well, live and learn.

Tasi Tours transported us from AMP to the dock and from the dock to Managaha, the small island a few kilometers North of Garapan. When we arrived we set up camp and got ready for a fun night.

Once camp was set up we let the kids run free for a while. They played beach volleyball (or at least tried) and went swimming. While I watched the kids, Bree got the fire going for our delicious dinner of hot dogs and vegetables...and beef jerky, chips, cookies, soda, and candy.

(note to self: next time we do this camp, don't allow the kids to bring sugar)
We couldn't have picked a better night to have a campout. The weather was perfect and the view was stunning.

Aren't we lucky to live here? Some people on Saipan don't realize what we have. For some of the kids, this was their first trip to Managaha. It was also the first time camping for a few.

After the sun set we got the fire roaring again so that we could make s'mores. Bree had to go to three different stores before she found any marshmallows. We told the kids that they could have as many as they wanted, as long as they didn't throw up.

Then, of course, no camping trip would be complete without a giant teddy bear and a ukulele:

The kids did some learning, too. We had an activity where we looked for zooplankton and phytoplankton and we talked about the shearwaters (a bird species) that nest on Managaha. In my opinion, though, the best lesson the kids learned is how much fun and how beautiful places like Managaha can be. I mentioned before that some of the kids were visiting Managaha for the first time. How else can we get kids to be interested in protected places if we don't get them to visit protected places?

Although I hope that these kids remember the difference between phytoplankton and zooplankton and why both are important, I think it is more important that these kids take home a love for the outdoors, camping, snorkeling, Managaha, Saipan, and the CNMI. One day these kids are going to join the military or go off to college, they'll be in Baghdad or Los Angeles, and they're going to remember the island where they were born...then they'll really appreciate what we have.

One day they'll return and they'll understand the importance of protecting our Natural Resources. They'll want Saipan to stay Saipan and not become Guam or Oahu.

(steps off soapbox)

Or at least they'll remember how much fun it was getting buried in the sand:

Bree wrote about the weeklong camp on her blog, Land of the Ayuyu.

Mylene also wrote about our trip to American Memorial Park and to Managaha. Hope also wrote about Managaha. Sami hasn't written anything about the camp. Come on, Sami, start writing!

Beautify CNMI Micronesia Challenge Summer Camp, Day 4

The last three days of the Beautify CNMI Micronesia Challenge Summer Camp flew by. As I type this on Saturday evening, I can't believe that it is over. Oh well, coming from a life long Boston Red Sox fan, there's always next year...and the students are already asking us to make it two weeks, instead of just one week, long.

We'll see about that.

Thursday ending up being our longest day. The day started at 7 AM. Two of the students, Bree, and I appeared on the Harry Blalock Island Issues radio program to talk about our camp. We were on the show for about 20 minutes and Harry grilled the two students, Sami and Zoe, about the things they have learned this week. He also helped us record environmental public service announcments after our interview.

Harry was so impressed by the girls and the other campers that he wrote about them on his blog and on his weekly radio commentary, Food For Thought:

Then I also wanted to spend a little time talking about a group of bright young students Angelo Villagomez and Bree Reynolds brought in to my studio Thursday morning. They are part of the Beautify CNMI Marianas Challenge Summer Camp, being put on by Angelo and Bree. These students really are learning about our environment, and what they can do to help protect it. I made sure they've learned something by grilling them with questions on Island Issues. Sami and Zoe totally impressed me with what they've learned and their passion about it. The only thing that caused me any concern at all was that Sami was just way too relaxed and good on the radio. I'm afraid she could replace me in a heartbeat if she wanted to, my only consolation is that she's just going in to the 9th grade this coming year, so my job is probably safe for a couple years anyway.

Part of what they did in this camp was to write public service announcements from what they have learned to air on the radio stations. Some of them even wrote an original song about beautifying the CNMI, they wrote the words and music. They came in with their ukelele and recorded the song in my production studio. I've got to say, I absolutely love it! You'll be hearing a lot of that song and those psa's in the coming months on both of our radio stations. What a talented group of students, and something tells me these are our leaders of tomorrow. If you'd like to see some of the pictures from their summer camp, and learn what it was all about, you can go to the www.greencnmi.blogspot.com website and read all about it. Tasi Tours deserves a big thank you for donating a van and driver to help transport the campers all week to their various places. And after hearing from the students on the air, Ed Salas of Tan Holdings Corporation called up donating Shirleys lunch for all the campers that day. They had talked about how the camp was being run on a shoestring budget and they were just making do with whatever they had, so Ed called up on behalf of Tan Holdings to give them a break from peanut butter or bologna for lunch. Many thanks go out to all the various people in the community who chip in to make amazing events like this happen. And while you could technically say this was job related for Angelo, Bree is a science teacher at Hopwood Junior High School, and is supposed to be on summer vacation right now. But she loves what she's doing so much, and loves the students so much, that she donated her time to help put on this summer camp.

I think I can forgive him for calling the Micronesia Challenge the Marianas Challenge.

After several hours at the radio station we returned to Hopwood to finish up work on the coral reef models and the wastewater science projects, which led right into lunch provided by Shirley's Coffee Shop and Tan Holdings. We also worked out some of the logistics for Friday's field trips to American Memorial Park and Managaha.

After lunch we had about 30 minutes before we left for our afternoon field trip, so Bree had the students play a couple of games based on communicable diseases.

In the first game they were given a series of clues and a map of a city suffering from disease outbreaks. Using the clues, they had to determine what disease people were contracting, how the disease was being spread (water borne, etc.), and the source of the disease (the water pump on Broad Street, etc.).

Then Tasi Tours picked us up at 1:30 and took us to the CUC Waste Water Treatment plant in Sadog Tasi...or as I like to call it, Wave Jungle II.

Our tour of the facility started in the lab. Heidi showed the students the lab and showed them how they check for bacteria in the water.

We also asked Heidi to talk about becoming a lab chemist for a career. She told the students that they had to be good at Math.

After letting use a microscope and showing us the different ways that CUC tests the effluent water, Heidi took us to the Brown Jacuzzi.

Ew. This is where CUC "cleans" the water. Using a process that I would only screw up if I tried to explain, CUC gets rid of all the solids and then dump the remaining liquids into the lagoon. Yum!

While we were contemplating joining the "Swim Club," some other CUC employees joined us. This led to one of the best moments of the camp.

Heidi asked one of the guys if there was anything he wanted to tell the kids. Without hesitation he responded, "well, kids, please don't flush your underwear down the toilet. You wouldn't believe the kinds of things we find: Shoes, underwear, even cellphones."

I'm probably going to repeat that story for the next five years.

Mylene wrote about Day 4 on her blog, Mylene Rocks.

I've got pictures and stories from Friday and Saturday morning, but I haven't uploaded the pictures yet. Come back tomorrow for an update. If the post isn't up by tomorrow, just keep waiting.

Mental Health Planning Council's Certificate of Appreciation

The CNMI Mental Health Planning Council presented me with a beautiful plaque earlier this morning in "Appreciation and Recognition for his Public Services, Volunteer Work and Advocacy in Improving the Lives of Individuals with Mental Health Disability, and most especially for Children with Special Needs."

So what does this have anything to do with Beautify CNMI? Glad you asked...

Back on January 18, 2007, I sent out this email:
My name is Steve Nguyen. I work as a Behavior Specialist for the public school system here in Saipan.

In the process of trying to find some help for a young man and while discussing and collaborating with a fellow member of the Mental Health Planning Council named Kaye Christian, an idea came to my mind to start a mental health awareness group here in the CNMI!

We've all heard about how a few passionate people started Beautify CNMI, a group of concerned citizens, groups, and government agencies united to enhance the CNMI's natural beauty and foster community pride. They picked up trash and are doing a great job cleaning up the beaches.

Beautify CNMI is doing its part to make our environment healthier, cleaner, and more beautiful. In this same spirit, we're going to start a mental health awareness group to clean up and wipe out the myths and stigmas that plague mental illness. We want to be the Beautify CNMI of mental health!

Drawing inspirations from...Beautify CNMI (environment)..., we are going to follow in the same footsteps set by Beautify CNMI and do the same thing for mental health that Beautify CNMI is doing for the environment! We will call this new group CAMI-CNMI (Coalition on the Anti-Stigmas of Mental Illness in CNMI). By uniting the powers of VOLUNTEERS from the community and from various agencies like PSS, Clubhouse, NMC, DYS, CGC, DPS, NMPASI, etc. we can and will ignite a mental health awareness revolution here in the CNMI!

So the short version is that I would like to share this award with the group that inspired me to create CAMI-CNMI. And CAMI-CNMI led to other projects and ideas.

So while Beautify CNMI was "spreading the beauty virus", I was working feverishly to help spread the "let's rid the CNMI of the stigmas of mental illness" virus.

I'm proud to have been a part of an on-going effort to develop local-capacity in training service providers and serving those with mental health needs and especially children with special needs.


This plaque given by the Mental Health Planning Council (MHPC) honoring my contributions to serving and advocating for individuals with mental health disability and children with special needs is validation of the efforts and partnerships of many people and agencies to serve those with mental and academic challenges.

So it is with the utmost appreciation that I humbly accept this award and thank Beautify CNMI for the inspiration. :)