Flowers From Plastic Waste
In 2016, Julien started his second and last chapter of his Courses for Children: flowers-making from plastic waste.
This new episode was not planed as a project or supposed to happened. But due to the great results of his initial project (kites-making – find here), Julien decided to extant his passion of teaching underprivileged children how to upcycle discarded plastic waste, for some times.
As before, the method of his new courses was the same:
1/ Collect of discarded plastic bags with the participating children.
2/ Teach them the crafting/upcycling technique.
3/ Point the issue of plastic waste pollution.
the courses
He organized 4 courses in Cambodia, still with NGO schools carrying for underprivileged schoolchildren.
Shine Cambodia
Otres Village – Sihanoukville / 2016, Jun / about 30 flowers made / 20 participating children
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Bomnong l'Or
Sihanoukville / 2016, Jun / about 30 flowers made / 12 participating children
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Toutes à l'école (Happy Chandara School)
Phnom Penh / 2017, August / about 100 flowers/ 50 participating children
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School of Joy
Siem Reap / 2018, November / about 600 flowers / 28 participating children
Videos
Julien made two short videos of his 4 courses.
Julien's Notes
My Courses for Children: what a time and stories!!
This last kids’ flowers-making was pretty much a bridge between: the reasons why I came to Southeast Asia (immersive trips/photojournalism and courses for children) and the start of my current and new episode into professional photography.
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Compared to my initial Courses for Children project (kites-making – find here), these flower courses were really less ‘magical’ in my opinion. But much more appropriated for young children and quickly satisfying all the participants – a flower is much simpler and quicker to craft than a kite.
Whether it was flower-making or kite-making, the impact of my courses focusing on plastic waste pollution was just as profound for the participating children.
See below the result of my last course! 🙂
Besides the fact that this result combines a great mix between the goal of my last course and the beginning of my career as a 360° photographer, I feel great to have redecorated a classroom where every day schoolchildren can immerse themselves in something interesting, possibly artistic, and mainly done with discarded materials.
With children (future adults) and the global environmental problem, I will always find that the playful approach I had with them is so much more relevant than a teacher or speaker occasionally telling to kids “plastic waste is not good”.
Course with NGO School of Joy – Siem Reap, 2019.
