CHANGING THE WORLD
her Meet the 10-year-old who’s dedicating and young life to helping the environment, her. proving an inspiration to all around
ONE girl, one mission, thousands of pieces of rubbish.
Marymount Primary student, 10-year-old Amber Henderson, has been picking up rubbish every day this year.
The environmental steward even wrote a persuasive essay convincing her principal to purchase plastic buckets so children could go around during lunchtimes and pick up litter.
For Amber, her call to action began when her and her friends started collecting rubbish at her local surfing nook, Currumbin Alley.
Two hours went by and the girls had, to their surprise, picked up 10kgs of rubbish just at the one beach.
Amber and her friends now spend every morning tea and lunch break picking up rubbish.
“We take the buckets out on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays and clean up during lunch break” she said.
“My friends help me run the program at school.”
Amber’s Mum Deanna Henderson said because of Amber the entire family has done a complete backflip on plastic.
“I used to be a major consumer — for me it was out of sight, out of mind,” she said.
“We now separate our plastics, bake instead of buying pre-packaged snacks and take our metal straws with us everywhere.
“Amber has been such an inspiration to our family,“
The young activist was recently approached by a popular environmental socialist movement, Take 3 for the Sea.
This not-for-profit organisation encourages people to take three pieces of rubbish away with you when you leave where you are.
“I pick up rubbish every day and I always pick up more than three pieces,” she said.
“I always find individual Mentos wrappers wherever we go. And lots of Chupa Chups sticks.”
The Henderson family have all become plastic conscious. They’ve just finished no-plasticJuly, making changes such as using shampoo and conditioner soap bars, and soap berries instead of dishwasher detergent.
Mrs Henderson said that Amber does face some struggles when it comes to eating out.
“We will go to a cafe and she will ask for her milkshakes to be put in a glass with no straw — and 90 per cent of the time she will get a straw,” she said.
“If society can get into the habit of being plastic conscious then it would make a huge difference.
“One of Amber’s favourite quotes is ‘little ripples makes big waves,’ and she really will make big waves one day.”
Amber spends most of her weekends and holidays in the water, and has been a lover of water sports from day one.
“We got talking the other day about what we would do with $100 million — she wants to put ships out on the ocean with radars that track down boats that kill whales,” Mrs Henderson said.
“She said she would get to stay on the ship on holidays and get into a helicopter so she could stop them herself.”
Amber and her friend spent one afternoon cleaning her entire street, to which she then displayed the bag of street rubbish on the side of the road and asked people to donate money for Take 3 for the Sea.
The young world changer isn’t stopping there — she has also started to pick up wrist bands from Bounce, outside her school in Burleigh.
“On Wednesday Mum and I go to Bounce and pick up all the discarded wristbands outside,” Amber said.
“People chuck them away and not into bins — we have picked up hundreds. I’m going to tell them they need to have a bin at their door.”
To keep up with what Mrs Henderson you can follow her on Instagram at @alittleripple.