A Play – Hope for the Earth
(ALL THE SONGS ARE WRITTEN IN ITALICS – THESE CAN BE SUNG TO SIMPLE TUNES)
Narrator: You are about to enter the enchanted world of nature as we tell you the story of a girl called Amla who lives in Mumbai and wants to save the earth.
Amla: I’m tired of this city Full of buildings so cold and dead There are no trees or flowers It’s crowded with people instead
The roads are blocked with traffic jams The skies are grey with smog The noise is just unbearable And the garbage stench is terrible
Its just not fair
Its just not fair (All her friends join her and together they say this LOUDLY)
(Sung to the tune of ‘Here we go round the Mulberry Bush’)
Her Friends in turns: Where is the world we’re supposed to know? Where are the trees? …. ….. The flowers and the bees?
The yellow fields, the burning sun above, The bright blue sky, the pretty birds that fly
They often sang for people.
Where have they gone?
Amla: Why did the world become like this?
How can I make it what it used to be?
Tree: Hey, little girls …
Amla and her friends: (looking around) We wonder who THAT was?
Tree: It’s me….
Amla: Can you really talk, or am I imagining it?
Tree: Yes, I can talk but only some people can hear me.
Amla: You want to say something to us?
Tree: You were singing about saving the earth. Do you really want to?
Amla and her friends: Yes, we want to … desperately.
Tree: Then maybe I can help you. Pluck a leaf from one of my branches. Hold it in the palm of your hands. Then close your eyes and think of saving the Earth and you will be able to do it!
Amla and her friends: Oh, thank you, thank you.
(They sing this song in turns)
For we all share this world of ours, And we need to protect it we need to right start now Even though we may not know how …..
Just think how far out the ocean goes, from shore to shore, door to door. Think of the valleys, the mountaintops the Earth never stops.
So deep, so high, with miles of sky Remember that we are all part of that pie.
So keep the sea and the land, just the way that God has planned , just the way that God had planned .
(Sung to the tune of ‘Yankee Doodle’)
Everyone Together : We must work hard to make this world beautiful again !
Lets take the leaf and think about saving the earth .
Narrator : Amla and her friends reach out for the leaf, hold it in
their hands and think about saving the earth
(There is a loud bang and the lights go off.)
Narrator : Looks like they have reached another land.
( A group of children come dancing on to the stage wearing clothes made of newspaper strips and wearing necklaces made of tins and cans and empty toothpaste tubes etc. – they dance like Baloo to the tune of ‘ Bare Necessities ‘ from the movie Jungle Book )
WNWNP : ( Waste not want not people )
Look for the bare necessities
The simple bare necessities
Forget about your worries and your strife
I mean the bare necessities
Old Mother Nature’s recipes
That brings the bare necessities of life
( Play the song till ‘ Where ever we wander , Wherever we go )
Amla and
her friends : Where are we ?? Who are these people ??
(They stop and ask some of the people who are singing ….)
What place is this ?? What is this place
called ??
WNWN people : This is the Land of Bare Necessities and we are the ‘WANT
NOT WASTE NOT PEOPLE ’ here ……..
One WNWNP
person : There are no shops in this land and no one buys
anything ….
WNWNP : Now when you shop
And buy dresses and shoes
Junk jewellery and what have yous …..
Just think where everything came from – honey ??
‘Cause though you may be paying the money
Its Mother Earth with all of nature that ends up paying a price
( The children say this to Rap )
Amla and
her friends : How does Mother Earth and all of nature end up paying a
price ??
One WNWNP : We’ll tell you how .
Now when you buy a dress .
Second WNWNP : Its made from cloth
Third WNWNP : Which is woven from thread
Fourth WNWNP : Which is spun from cotton
Fifth WNWNP : Which grows on these plants
Sixth WNWNP : And do you know how many forests were cut down to grow these plants ??
Fourth WNWNP : On which grew the cotton
Third WNWNP : From which the thread was spun
Second WNWNP : From which the cloth was woven
First WNWNP : From which this dress was made …..
Amla
and her friends : Aha ! we understand it all so clearly now . So when we shop its doing the Earth a lot of harm somewhere .
WNWNP Together : And there’s one more thing you have to learn about our land .
One
WNWNP: We do not waste anything here ….nothing is thrown
away . Everything is reused or recycled including our
garbage …. We just love our ‘Kachra ‘ and our TRASH !!
WNWNP sing together :
YES, WE all LOVE our TRASH ,
And we always recycle all our waste
‘Cause we need to make our garbage less
Or our Earth will soon be covered with our mess
Put your plastic and paper waste all in the bins
Then recycle with cans and tins.
Don’t throw your stale food and vegetable peels
Make it into compost – its no big deal
This is food for the plants, that will make the earth green
Thus the world will forever stay clean.
( Sung to the tune of ‘ It’s a Small World ‘ )
One WNWN
Person :
It takes plastic 500 years to decompose and break down.
Imagine that every time, that someone throws a plastic bag or a plastic bottle it will remain on the earth for 500 years !
AMLA and
her friends :That’s very frightening . WE have a lot to learn yet ….lets see
where the leaf takes us next ..
They all hold the leaf together …….
( Sound of a BIG BANG !!!! )
Narrator : Amla reaches the LAST LANDS OF NATURE and she
is shocked to see what is happening there. The first place
she reaches are the Rainforests :
( The Rainforest children come dancing in and after dancing to music they sing this song )
The Rainforests : sing this song
We give you fresh air to breathe
Animals call us their home
From our plants and trees you get food and medicines more
All the birds in all the trees
Every insect, every leaf
Fish and animals dance with me
Sustaining life for us all
Now it is very important to
Tell the people what we must do
Tell everybody that its not okay
To let the forests get cleared away
To let the forests get cleared away
( Sung to the tune of ‘Come Back Eliza’ )
Amla and
her friends :
Rainforests … why should we worry about rainforests -they’re so far away,
And there’s nothing that WE can do.
One of
Amla’s friends:
I know that in these Rain Forests
That I may never see,
Half the world’s plants, animals and insects
Live in harmony.
So much bio-diversity
Another friend: I know that trees are being cut,
Faster than we know.
These trees are habitats where the creatures live,
So now where will they go?
Amla and all
her friends : So, even though they’re far away,
Rainforests I can’t see
But I can learn and understand
Because the future starts with me!
Rainforest
Children
in turns : Have you eaten a papaya ?
A strawberry, an orange, a banana ?
A tomato , a capsicum, a pea-nut ?
A sweet potato ,
maybe a pineapple ??
Well do you know where these were first found ?
You guessed right – they were found in the rainforests !!!
The same with our medicines. So many plants are there yet undiscovered in our rainforests.
Amla : My goodness – there’s so much to see and learn yet – lets
move on.
(Amla and her friends hold the leaf.)
( A LOUD BANG !!! !
Narrator : Amla and her friends are now in a new habitat …….lets
see where they’ve reached ..…….
( The SEA children come dancing in – some come as waves waving blue coloured odhnis and some children come as the fish swimming through the waves )
THE SEA Children We are the sea, the sea , the sea ,
Sing : Just look at the sea world around you
Right here on the ocean floor
Such wonderful things surround you
What more are you looking for?
Fish and oysters and eels,
And whales and sharks in the deep,
Dolphins that dive and leap,
There are so many creatures here
So much bio – diversity
Under the sea, under the sea
But now the humans are messing it up
With oil slicks from ships
And factories that pour
Toxic wastes by the shore ,
And the mess gets more and MORE AND MORE !!
( Sung to the tune of ‘ Lily the Pink ‘ )
Amla and
her friends :
We are destroying EVERYTHING ON THIS EARTH !
We are destroying EVERYTHING ON THIS EARTH !
Amla and her friends :
We’ve now understood it all ………
We’ve been through all the Lands of Nature …..
They sing this song or say it :
The Earth is such a beautiful place
That’s being threatened by the human race
All the habitats are being destroyed by the hour
And animals are dying forever
So we must learn to care
Not to waste, to use less and to share
To work hard to make people aware
For that’s the only way we can hope to save the earth
For that’s the only way we can hope to save the earth
EVERYONE COMES ON TO THE STAGE AND SINGS WITH THE AUDIENCE
Let us begin to lend a hand
Parents, children across the land
Let’s start to share, Let’s start to care
Cause that seems the only way
From the smallest ant to the tallest tree
From the highest peak to the deepest sea
The world must sing in harmony
Cause that seems the only way
Let’s vow today to make our earth a better place to stay
Let’s start to share, Let’s start to care
Cause that seems the only way
( Sung to the tune of ‘ Auld Lang Syne ’ )