Wally Tham is an award winning media producer and community activator.

As a film maker, Wally’s work spans viral commercials on social media and more recently a short documentary that won “Honorable Mention” in Sony Pictures Eco-film Festival in California 2018.

Trained in Gestalt Organizational Development, Wally also runs public and corporate workshops that tackle inequality, conversations on race, personal leadership, how to innovate and community activation.

With ‘Sayang Kalimantan’ Wally documents the 2015 peatland fires that resulted in a haze that affected regions of South East Asia and in particular the people who lived in Kalimantan.

The film tracks his own journey of what began as an education and aid trip became a two year journey to create Indonesia’s first clean air shelter in anticipation of future fires.

Watch the film here:

https://www.facebook.com/BigRedButtonSG/videos/2367343503279629/

Big Red Button is very proud to present:

Located in Palangka Raya, NestHQ (Sarang) : The first Haze shelter in Indonesia with 2 stages of active air filtration, capable of reducing PM2.5 particles by 95–99%.

A converted shop space of 2000 sq feet, it’s up and running with capacity for 40 adults or 60 children.

Two years in the making and after extensive R&D, we have Indonesia’s first haze shelter. Based on my experience in extreme PM2.5 conditions, we have built airflow restricted entry ways, 1st stage filtration to draw 70–90% filtered oxygenated air in & have 6 Airazor purifiers to handle the the remaining fine particles.

Little Nest(Sarang Kecil): Our advanced haze shelter prototype for rural village (wooden-board type) housing.

By weight, Little Nest’s structure is made from 99% sustainable materials: readily available rattan or bamboo. It was designed to be simple for any village resident to build. We made the shell from IKEA shower curtains, sealing out pollution.

Finally, a fan and filter membrane is fit on top to create a positive clean air pressure downwards, driving heat, CO2 and humidity out the bottom gaps.

The Little Nest was built in response to UNICEF’s interest in our large haze shelter and the ongoing challenge of protecting village residents. Village houses (kampungs) are typically made from wooden boards and zinc roofs, are extremely difficult to seal.

We decided to join in on UNICEF’s co-design campaign and within a week the Big Red Button team did our sketch-ups, sourced readily available materials and Ranu Welum found local craftsmen to build the rattan structure. The build took only a day and we are confident in creating a production line to scale the effort in the event of a haze emergency.

The filter we use has a flow rate of 1.8m/second and can achieve over 15 air changes per hour.

The shelters were designed and funded by Wally Tham, founder of Big Red Button and built for our partners Ranu Welum, a youth led advocacy for the Dayak indigenous peoples.

We believe these designs will help communities vulnerable to peatland fires.

If you would like to contribute to building more shelters, do email us: info@bigredbutton.com.sg

And share this story with your friends on Facebook or via email.

BACKGROUND:

In 2015, Indonesia saw it’s biggest season of forest fires in years.

The fires that spanned thousands of acres, put more carbon into the air in those 3 months than all of Europe does in a year.

Pollution levels during my 6 day visit ranged from 35,000 PM 2.5/cubic feet to 1.7 million PM 2.5/cubic feet on any given day.

A “Good” rating is from 0–50 Pm 2.5/meter3.

“Bad” 50–100 Pm 2.5/meter3.

(For reference, a direct reading from a cigarette is 33000 PM 2.5/cubic feet)

During the 2015 haze, I joined some Singaporeans in distributing mask to the people of Kalimantan.

In the 6 days I was there I also crowdfunded a drone and professional masks for volunteer fire fighters. The drone was used to document the extent of the devastation and the photos made their way into news media, bolstering support for these brave men and women who charged into hellish conditions everyday.

Other outcomes of the 2015 trip:

- crowdfunded a professional air quality meter for Ranu Welum, a young group seeking to protect the citizens of Kalimantan from the haze.

- designed a workshop around explaining the effects of PM2.5 exposure and showed how N95 masks were effective via live data.

Since October 2015, we have returned over 6 times to give media & leadership training to Ranu Welum.

We funded the space and designed the systems for the Haze Shelter.

We are passionately looking for partners to establish more clean rooms in Indonesia to protect children and the elderly should the fires appear again. With global warming drying peatlands, we know even the best intentioned governments may find fire suppression a challenge in the coming years.

WHAT IS PM2.5?

Smoke is comprised of mainly two parts, gases and particles.

Particles can vary in size but the World Health Organization pays attention to Particulate Matter sized 2.5 microns (PM 2.5) because of their small size and ability to be absorbed into the body.

For scale, the width of the human hair is 40 times thicker than a PM 2.5 particle. These particles can enter the body through the lungs, skin and eyes. When they accumulate in the body, over time the chances of stroke, cancer and heart disease increase dramatically.

WHY DOES BIG RED BUTTON CARE?

WWW.BIGREDBUTTON.COM.SG has been looking at the haze issue since 2013, creating PSAs and crowdfunding air purifiers in SIngapore for the elderly.

During the 2015 haze, Singapore saw spikes in PSI readings at over 400 points.

Through our ground up initiative www.facebook.com/standupforSG , we crowdfunded 40 air purifier units for the elderly in low income housing.

We then looked at how else we could help and were directed to the work of ‘Let’s Help Kalimantan’, we helped them make a crowdfund video and went on their 2nd trip to distribute masks.

The haze shelter is the result of two years of follow up R&D and personal funding.

We hope the designs will be used by all to create safe spaces for all.

Little Nest Haze Shelter Design is registered under:

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The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.

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• Raising funds for food hawkers who lost their stalls in a massive fire.

https://www.facebook.com/StandUpForSG/posts/1129973273706885

• Tackled Zika and Dengue communications with Facebook and govt agencies by using more Alt messaging.

https://www.facebook.com/StandUpForSG/videos/1147057831998429/

• Raised money with Nilu for the victims of Sri Lanka’s floods and went along to supervise distribution.

https://www.facebook.com/wallytham/videos/10153975070832825/

• We raised awareness for kids growing up with autism spectrum with Singapore’s first Harvard A Capella Subway Tour.

https://www.facebook.com/StandUpForSG/posts/1058561087514771

• Made a documentary on Singapore’s most prominent stand up comedian that hast gathered over 700K views.

https://www.facebook.com/mambospi/posts/10154970364572638

• Coached a group of 4 for 90 days through life goals.
• Gave media training in Bali to the youth leaders from Kalimantan eatly this year, set up a HQ with video editing facilities.

• Working on new ways to tell the Singapore story. We have much to be proud of and many more ways to make our nation great.

https://www.facebook.com/StandUpForSG/videos/949467181757496/

• Getting a team together for my next trip to Kalimantan, to build clean-air rooms and supply drilling equipment to the firefighters prepping for subterranean fires.

My name is Wally.

I live in sunny Singapore.

I run a change management company Big Red Button, we use stories to help people/corporations/government agencies tackle issues differently.

I also lead a ground up initiative call Stand Up For Our Singapore.
We find ways to contribute to Singapore’s narrative on what kind of country we could be and how are the best ways to contribute one another.

In my spare time, I like to look at global problems and help out in my own little way. With friends I have built a village using the arts, given out 20 tonnes of rice to Smokey Mountain and recently, I am finding sustainable ways to address the Haze crisis in Kalimantan.

There is some level of shadow play when one talks about the fires in Indonesia.

Politicians wave their hands talking about the weather, El Niño and how all this smoke will be but a passing season.

We see soldiers dancing round the flames, brandishing fire hoses or in too many instances, a sorry tree branch.

Even with mighty Chinook helicopters dumping 5 tonnes of water on burning peatland, the cameras often fail to show the after math, scorched earth that smoulders for hours, days and weeks after.

What cameras cannot see and what reporters cannot show are the fires that burn 10 to 20 metres below the surface.

A photo taken after a week of rain, the peatland continues to burn underground right next to a canal.

So how do you fight these fires?

Not with branches or hoses or even a massive helicopter.

What the Indonesian peatland needs desperately is hydration.

And like how we treat a person suffering from massive dehydration, we need to give the land an intravenous drip.

I met Januminro and his team of volunteer fire fighters after a 15 minute trek into the nature reserve.

I was told the forest is home to a great diversity of wildlife, with Orangutans, snakes and bears calling it home.

With a team of only 20 men, they care for 5000 hectares of forest.

Each bore well takes 10 men 3 hours to dig.

It is the only real way of getting to the root of the fires.

If you would like to help me get mechanical drills to the firemen of Kalimantan and clean room setups to the civilian areas in November, click the link below:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/sayang-kalimantan-sayang-equip-the-haze-fight#/

My name is Wally.

I run a change management company Big Red Button, we use stories to help people/corporations/government agencies tackle issues differently.

I also lead a ground up initiative call Stand Up For Our Singapore.
We find ways to contribute to Singapore’s narrative on what kind of country we could be and how are the best ways to contribute one another.

In my spare time, I like to look at global problems and help out in my own little way. With friends I have built a village using the arts, given out 20 tonnes of rice to Smokey Mountain and recently, I am finding sustainable ways to address the Haze crisis in Kalimantan.