By: Muhammad Azhari Lubis (Volunteer Panda Mobile)

On the motor vehicle free day (HBKB) or better known as car free day (CFD), last Sunday (06/11) in Katulampa, Bogor, Panda Mobile educated the public and children about the environment. Early in the morning at around 06.00 WIB, the Panda Mobile team had already made preparations at the CFD location.

Before the activity began, children who were in the Katulampa Bogor CFD area were first invited to play Sumatran tiger cricket. While playing, they were introduced to the behavior of Sumatran tigers and their habitat. The volunteers also explained why Sumatran tigers need to be saved.

The participants also got to know the animals that are the focus of WWF-Indonesia's conservation through coloring activities. In this activity, many children were interested. They asked the volunteers for coloring sheets. The atmosphere of the Panda Mobile truck that day was very crowded. The participants who already got the coloring sheets were really painstaking and serious in coloring pictures of endangered animals, such as Sumatran elephants and Sumatran tigers.

The conservation message delivered by Panda Mobile at CFD Katulampa Bogor was also wrapped in storytelling. Kak Ryan, a storyteller from Panda Mobile, told the story of an orangutan cub that lost its mother due to human activities. Through the storytelling, the public in the CFD area was invited to care about the plight of orangutans. Adults and children were very happy and enthusiastic to hear the story about the animals.

The presence of the Panda Mobile truck in the CFD area attracted considerable public attention. Some of the visitors who came even wanted to invite Panda Mobile to do activities at their school. One of these visitors turned out to be a teacher from a school in Bogor. "In the Bogor area, there are a lot of schools that need environmental education like this because Bogor City has a big contribution to other cities, for example the water that flows in the Ciliwung River towards Jakarta. If many people in Bogor have polluted the rivers, what will happen to the condition of the rivers in Jakarta? Everything is interconnected, even the animals. If humans continue to destroy nature, animals will become extinct and affect humans themselves because of the unbalanced ecosystem," he said.

Aside from being a storytelling stage, the Panda Mobile truck can also be used as a place to watch movies about the environment. That day, after listening to storytelling, children also climbed into the truck to watch several movies, such as "Tiger Hunter", "The World is Where We Live", "Quartet at the Crossroads", and "Animal Planet". After watching the movie, Panda Mobile volunteers asked the children questions about the animals in the movie and introduced them to some of the animals they didn't know about and explained the message of the movie.