5 January
IN early December, Air Quality Yangon (AQY), who are 17 to 23 years old launched a social campaign, the first of its kind, with the help of Dr Air Bear to raise awareness and expose the often-dangerous levels of air pollution in Yangon. Additionally, this youth-led campaign aims to encourage public action by providing efficient ways to help make Yangon’s air cleaner.
Air Quality Yangon created an environmentally friend-ly robot that gathered air quality data around Yan-gon. The bear is made out of white cotton and as the days passed, dust from the air has settled on the bear’s body turn-ing it darker as it moves through traf-fic in Yangon. It is a visual representa-tion that the air we are breathing in Yangon is dirty. Along with the bear’s massive appeal to pedestrians, AQY team engaged with the general public by sharing their knowledge about air pollution. Carrying their science-filled, data-led signboards, they have been putting in great efforts to make people care about the air we breathe.
AQY’s goal is to inform the public about Yan-gon’s air quality by collecting and presenting re-al-time data, to raise awareness of the dangers of air pollution for Myanmar citizens, and to provide examples of how simple lifestyle changes can help reduce air pollution.
“Our purpose with Dr. Air Bear is to make the invisible threat visible in an engaging way,” said Air Quality Member member Zaw Win Htet. “Air pollution is a serious and growing problem here, but many people do not understand how dangerous it is. So, we come up with the idea of Dr. Air Bear who time travelled from the year 2050 when Yangon’s air quality is really bad causing the death of his own mother. He wants to change his future by going back in time to when Yangon’s air pollution starts to reach dangerous levels and stop it. We hope that by getting their attention through Dr. Air Bear, we can motivate them to take action.”
While traveling with Dr.Air Bear, AQY makes an effort to use public transportation, carpool, bike, and walk in order to set an example for pollution reduction. They post photos and videos of their excursions on their Facebook page along with air pollution measurements they have collected.
According to the World Health Organization, air pollution causes 22,000 deaths in Myanmar every year, in addition to chronic respiratory ailments for many more. Yangon’s worsening air quality is commonly attributed to the dramatic increase in vehicles since imports were liberalized in 2011 and the corresponding removal of trees to make way for traffic and development, but other factors such as factory emissions, cooking with charcoal, and burning trash also play a role.
The Know What You Breathe campaign is the result of funding for AQY from global nonprofit Save The Children through its SHIFT platform, in which the AQY team was able to join 3-day work-shop for which they chose the issue closest to their hearts: Air Pollution. During the workshop, AQY received help in writing a statement on strategies to address the issue, which ultimately led them to co-create the Know What You Breathe campaign with the help of their creative partner, Bridge.
Andy Nilsen, Director of Advocacy, Commu-nications, Campaigns and Media at Save the Chil-dren, created SHIFT as a campaign accelerator program to support youth movements for positive change. “This generation in Myanmar has seen the air quality dramatically decrease in ways that could affect them for the rest of their lives,” Nilsen said. “I’m proud to support these young people in their mission to raise awareness and ultimately improve the air quality in Yangon and throughout the country. It is my hope that the people and gov-ernment of Myanmar will pay attention to their findings and make real changes.”
At the end of the campaign, AQY will also urge the people to join them in cleaning up Yangon’s air by launching an online pledge to walk whenever possible, ride a bicycle or trishaw to places too far to walk, and take public transportation for long distances.“
Change requires public pressure, which requires awareness that there is a problem,” Zaw Win Htet, said. “We believe that when people are aware of the severity of Myanmar’s air quality situation, they will change their behaviors and ask the government to do more. That’s why we continue to focus on expanding monitoring of air quality. From here, it will be up to the people of Myanmar to take action and bring back our clean air.”—GNLM
