Natural disasters such as typhoons, earthquakes and floods are happening more and more frequently recently. Global warming is becoming more and more serious as each day passes by. These happenings indicate that mother Earth is getting really sick. International Medical University (IMU) Tzu Chi Collegiate Youth Association took the initiative into saving planet Earth by organising a three-day exhibition at IMU with the theme “SOS, Save Ourselves!”. This “Save the Earth” Exhibition is aimed at raising awareness among IMU students and staffs about environmental protection. The exhibition was held from 12 August 2014 to 14 August 2014 at the University’s atrium.
The opening ceremony was held on 11 August 2014. Dr Eddie Chan was invited to give a talk on “Vegetarian and Healthy Lifestyle” to promote vegetarian diet and show how vegetarianism is related to environmental protection and healthy lifestyle at the opening ceremony. 
Recycling and vegetarianism were the two main topics stressed in the exhibition. Booths such as house odels depicting the conditions during natural disasters and a simulated global warming room helped the students and staff of IMU to understand what it actually feels like to be living under those conditions. A “5R” booth promoting the acts of Refusing, Reducing, Reusing, Repairing and Recycling materials and a “Do It Yourself (DIY)” booth showing how different recycled materials can be make into beautiful and useful crafts, were also set up. Besides that, there was a vegetarian booth where volunteers in-charge prepared different vegetarian meals throughout the exhibition. This gives those who came to the exhibition a taste of vegetarian food while promoting vegetarian diet to them. Not only that, there were photo and game booths for the fun corner. Last but not least, there was a booth which sells vegetarian instant noodles and rice and also few natural products such as shampoos and perfumes. People were highly encouraged to buy the food containers, chopsticks and spoons in the booth to discourage the use of polystyrene in getting food which is not environmentally friendly. 
Students and staffs of the university were all satisfied and amazed with the exhibition. To them, this exhibition was an eye opener because they actually did not know that most of the things they usually threw away as rubbish can actually be turned into many useful products such as shirts and blankets. They were also touched by the fact that Tzu Chi Foundation is actually providing those products freely to natural disaster victims around the world. Most of them have also vowed to start using food containers instead of the polystyrene ones to put their food and also to reduce the intake of meat while trying to shift to a vegetarian diet. Written by Tang Jia Ruey (Tzu Chi Collegiate Youth Association)
