Study trip to the rainforest in Kenya

Fifteen students from St. Patrick’s Ebubere mixed secondary accompanied by two teachers, Mr. Okwako Zadick and madam Imelda Indeche went on a study trip to Kakamega rainforest.
Students interacted with indegenous tree species preserved in the Forest.
Students were taken through the importance of conserving indegenous trees which has contributed to high and reliable rainfall in the western part of Kenya.

The students got to see many tree species that grow in the rainforest. For example:

An Elgon Teak tree that is 150 years old

African Mahogany tree, often used for wood carving

Sand Paper tree( Sacred tree or tree or tree justice). This tree has pockets used to store water for wild animals.

Aningeria altissima. A medicinal tree that improves the body’s immunity

Sand paper tree

Aningeria altissima

Elgon Teak tree

Triangular Fig Tree

Triangular Fig Tree

The study trip took one hour and students came back to school to share what they had gained from the trip. The students came to appreciate the role that forests play in regulating and stabilising the climate system of their region. It is very important to preserve forests to save habitat for animals and endangered plant species.

Introduction from St. Patrick’s Ebubere Secondary School

We are from St. Patrick’s Ebubere Mixed Day Secondary School in Kenya. We are 22 students and we are coordinated by two teachers: Mr. Okwako Zadick and Madam Imelda Indeche. We are participating in the climate change program, introduced in our School by Mondo’s organisation. We are grateful to be part of this program and ensure that we acquire knowledge on climate change through Mondo class network from other countries.

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In our first session Mr. Okwako and Madam Imelda introduced the idea of the project and school network. We are excited to learn more about climate change impacts our community and other areas in the world.

As the next session our group visited the Shianda market center where cleaning at the Dump site took place.

The theme of the project day was “Clean Air, Clean Environment”. The clean-up activity was in relation to pollution and its effect on climate change and how can we educate people around us to keep our village and community clean. The session was organised by Kakamega County Government in Mumias East subcounty.

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Final video of Severodonetsk Secondary School 5

And finally, here is the video from our school which explains how climate change affects the people here in our city.

Climate change activities in Severodonetsk Secondary School 5

To find out more how climate change affects or community we did some interviews. We talked to elderly people in our community but also teachers and staff of our school as well as students and some workers of industries in our city. From these interviews we got information that people are noticing many thing about the climate changing. For example or summer are getting more and more hot and there is much less rainfall which impacts agriculture in a negative way. Winters on the other hand are getting warmer and that means we have less snow.

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To find out even more, we organised a seminar at our school with specialist from the ecological inspection of Lugansk Oblast. After the seminar we had a tree planting activity near our school.

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And we also had another trash clean-up and tree planting action in a park near a lake that is in our city. Here is a video and some photos of it:

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Introduction from Severodonetsk Secondary School 5

Hello!

We are the students of Severodonetsk  Secondary School 5, Luhansk Oblast, Severodonetsk city. This is the school, whose students want to change the world. The team of the 10th and 11th graders is full of enthusiasm and ideas for changes. Each of us is a broadminded and unique person, who seeks to change the world and worries about its current problems. We believe that the problem of climate change is not just important, but global and affects each of us. Why? Because climate change is happening because of the human race and everyone is contributing. We live in the city with a lot of chemical plants, so we know better than anyone about the consequences of such actions and experience their influence. So, we really want to change that. To change the world you need to set in order first! Without solving this question, we will destroy nature, everything around, even ourselves. Our school is one of the leading Zero Waste movement in the region. We have already carried out such actions as picking garbage  in the city, planting trees and installing special sorting bins in our school, which are accessible to all citizens. We also care for the younger generations, teach them how to reduce our harmful impact on the planet, tell them about environmental values, because we understand that our future depends on the youth!

We were very excited to get to work on the climate change project. In the first sessions of this project we got to know more a bout the Mondo school network and the countries included in the project.

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Then in the following sessions we learned more about climate change: what causes it and what are the consequences of it worldwide.

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We also had some sessions about creative writing where we learned to tell our life stories. Then we got to know some tips and tricks how to turn a story into a short film just by using our smartphones.

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Here is a short video introduction of our school:

Stories from the community

Rwamwanja BTVET Training Centre–Finn Church Aid (FCA)

Work Process Summary

Rwamwanja BTVET Training Centre–Finn Church Aid (FCA)

The project was implemented by Finn Church Aid (FCA) in Rwamwanja Refugee Settlement, Western Uganda. The refugee settlement is mainly home to Congolese Refugees, mainly from Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

How students were selected: The project begun in February 2021 with identification of students to participate in project activities. A simple criterion was used to aid the selection process. Through this criteria, the project targeted youths aged 15-25 years, living in Rwamwanja refugee settlement (refugees), youths of the Rwamwanja ‘host community’, and former trainee of the Rwamwanja BTVET Training Center with demonstrated interest and commitment to the training program. In total, 16 students were selected including 10M, 6F; 13 refugees and 3 ‘host community’ youths.

Orientation on project activities: Orientation for all selected youths was held for one day. It focused on explaining what NGO Mondo is / what it does, explaining the project objectives and activities, agreeing on how to align the new activities within the BTVET Center IT Lab program, and scheduling meeting and training days. Engaging students in climate change related activities: The students were engaged every Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays in class workshops and related field study excursions basing on the lesson plan provided by Mondo as a guide. In addition, the students were engaged in the following activities:

• During the first week, students were introduced to NGO Mondo School Network Project; they were also introduced to the School Linking Blog(https://foodforthoughtmondo.wordpress.com/). Consequently, the students were able to use the school linking blog, and throughout the project period, the students used the blog to interact with their peers and learn more about global climate issues. The students, with support by trainers, were engaged in 3 groups to write three short introductions about themselves and selected one story that was shared on the school network linking blog.
• During week three, the students were introduced to Climate Change and related issues using the USAID Climate Change Fact Sheet as a guide to the discussion. In two groups of eight, the students discussed the fact sheet trying to relate it to personal experiences on local climate change issues and phenomena. A Cartoon Video (MAN by Steve Cutts: https://youtu.be/WfGMYdalClU) assisted the students to understand better the linkage between human activity, environmental destruction and climate change. In their groups of eight, the students wrote their own reflection, what they understood and thought after the Cartoon Video and their insights on the video were shared through the school network linking blog.
• For weeks four to six, students participated in creative writing and video editing. These were held using the workshop approach. Each student composed a small ‘climate and me’ story also remembered as a ‘life changing event’ they experienced, and shared with the group, while recording each story.   Consequently, three short ‘climate and me’ videos were recorded and edited by the students themselves using smartphones. The three short videos were later merged into one video, giving the students the video-editing skills to edit separate video clips into one larger video. Since the videos were recorded in local languages, interpreters assisted to translate the students’ words into (by adding subtitles to the videos). Finally, the students themselves created a group YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCskxTYek5lU1bt1yLtmn8-g, where they shared their climate change video stories.
• Through week 8 and 10, the project supported students in collecting climate change stories from their communities. The students, supported by the BTVET Training Centre Instructors (teachers) visited different communities around the refugee settlement in Base Camp 1 and Base Camp 2 and shared with the communities on their experience and understanding of climate change and its effects. Students also recorded some videos with some of the community members as they shared their climate change stories.
• Lastly, a number of field workshops were conducted with groups of students engaging the local communities to find a number of climate change-related stories /events and/or phenomena. Consequently, two stories were chosen by the students for sharing on the school network blog. The stories were edited by students themselves. Since they were recorded in the local languages, the project engaged interpreters to provide subtitles in English so that the stories can be understood by other students around the world. The stories were shared on the group’s YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCskxTYek5lU1bt1yLtmn8-g)

Mutoni Uwase (Left) and her colleague Jacinta (Centre) conducting an interview with (Furuha Uwimana) a community member (Right) about climate change while being recorded

Group Discussions/Brainstorming: A group of students engage in an independent discussion during creative writing workshops

Guided Group Discussions: Students Engaged in Group Discussions about climate change with guidance from FCA ICT Instructor (Extreme Right)

Climate Change Stories

By Students of Rwamwanja

Hello There! Check out our climate change videos

Edson One of the Students Sharing his climate change story

Charles Kashindi A Congolese Refugee Sharing his climate change story

Analysis of ‘Man’ Cartoon-Steve Cutts

By Students from Rwamwanja-Uganda

Man’s Activities specifically economic activities like cultivation, industrialization has destroyed our climate. An if something is not done to restore nature and strike a balance between Industrialization and Climate Change, Earth will end up in ruins, the last part where the aliens come and are not happy with MAN is simply because they found a wasteland instead of home they expected to find. In short the video tells us we have already done enough damage and as such we need to do something about it before we lose our planet to effects of climate change created by ourselves

Introduction from Rubizhne Secondary School

The team of Rubizhne Secondary School of I-III grades № 9 consisting of 20 students of 10-11 grades and biology teacher Natalia Dobroskok became a participant of the mini-project “We and Climate Change” 1Planet4All, implemented by Vostok SOS Charitable Foundation in partnership with Mondo NGO from Estonia

The school’s close long-term cooperation with the Vostok SOS Charitable Foundation always inspires new achievements and creative development. This time we will have an incredible study on “Climate Change and Us”, and most importantly – the opportunity to share ideas and experiences with students from Afghanistan, Estonia, Ghana, Kenya, Myanmar, Uganda.

During the project, we and students from different countries will discuss climate change in the classroom, create content for the school network blog, publish our own stories, photos, videos, in which we will talk about the impact of climate change on the community.

In the first sessions of Climate Change and Us project we got to know more about the school network and schools who are involved in it by reading the blog of the project.

We then went on to learn more about climate change and also practices creative writing to find our own stories about our lives and climate change. We also learned how to edit videos just by using our smartphones.

To begin our investigation about climate change we did and interview with a specialist from the Rubizhne city council.