Introduction from Belovodsk Lyceum in Ukraine

Since March 2021, Belovodsk Lyceum “Leader” has been holding regular classes with students of grades 9 to 11 for the environmental project “Climate Change and Us”.

In these classes, working in groups, students emphasized that climate change is a global challenge, which means that to overcome it, the whole world must work together. We noticed that in order for people in power to hear and understand us, we need to be able to use our voice. If we are good speakers and can tell interesting stories, we can make our leaders better understand who we are and what changes we need.
Thanks to the Internet, we have the opportunity to tell our story to people from other cities, districts, regions and even around the world. Perhaps without our history, they would never know what kind of people live in our community, how they live and what problems they face due to climate change. People living in regions with cold climates may think that global warming is good – because the hot weather is not so bad for them. But if they are aware of the damage that drought and too hot weather can do in other countries, they will be able to better understand and empathize.

When we empathize with others, it is easier for us to work together and achieve great things. That’s why it’s so important to know how to tell stories – to inspire empathy.

The history of every citizen is important.

The students worked on three questions to which they had to find answers.

1. What was one of the important and significant experiences that influenced who they became? Within 10-15 minutes, the students had the opportunity to respond to them.
2. Have you had experience monitoring climate change? How has this affected your community? Is the weather different from when you were a child?
3. To build a better future, we must first imagine ourselves there. What would the world look like for you? What are your dreams for a sustainable world, where communities are strong and peaceful, where we can not only continue our traditions, but also innovate? What might the dream community look like to you (which is strong before climate change)? What role can you play to make this dream come true?
   At the end of the allotted time, those interested had the opportunity to talk about what they would like to share. The students told their unexpected life stories. The audience was very moved by the story of a boy-immigrant from the city of Luhansk. Some students shared experiences that influenced their worldview. Each student had his own story, which has a great impact on personal vision of the world. The answers were varied: from their own experience of participating in various environmental projects to the stories of their loved ones and friends. In this way, the project participants learned more about each other, and we hope that in the future it will help them get closer to overcoming global problems.

Here is a photo of our team of students:

Drawing wildlife with Mukambi Primary School students

In January NGO Mondo volunteer Olle Kaidro and WEFOCO school coordinator Sophia Malaha visited different schools in Uganda and Kenya, among them Mukambi Primary School. During their visit, students drew pictures of various plants and animals that could be found near their school.

Students were given drawings made by the students of Pärnu Rääma Basic School. They were fascinated to see some Estonian animals and learn their Estonian names.

After seeing the drawings students were eager to draw their own.

Students were inspired by the surroundings

Everyone were excited and had lots of fun. Especially commenting on each other’s pictures.

They wrote down the name of the animal in English and in their language, suahili.

All of the drawings were gathered to send them to their partner school, Pärnu Rääma Basic School.

Every one were active and really enjoyed the day. Hopefully the pictures will be as well received as the pictures from Estonia!

European Sustainable development week

The celebration of  European Sustainable Development Week in Estonia lasted  from May 1st until June 6th 2017. It was a cooperation project between AIESEC in Estonia and NGO Mondo, Estonian National Coordination of UNESCO Associated Schools Project Network (supported by UNESCO National Commision and Estonian Ministry of Education and Research).

The two AIESEC volunteers, Amy Corcoran and Wentao Pu both came to Estonia from Canada. In cooperation with Mondo’s experts we developed the following workshops:

1) Multuculturalilty in Canada

2) Orienteering game on SDGs

3) Comics on SDGs

4) Sustainable consumption

 

Project was devided in five stages:

2-5 May – Cultural preparation and introduction to #globalgoals

• Arrival
• Introducing SDGs
• Global Education seminar day

8-12 May – School related preparation

• NGO Mondo’s school workshops
• Planning and preparing ESD workshops for schools
• Call for visits for the schools

15-19 May – School visits

• Finalizing ESD workshops
• 05 Multuculturalilty in Canada at Paldiski Ühisgümnaasium – Grades 9-11, 35 students, 2 academic hours, contact teacher Riina Talvik

22-26 May – School visits

• 05 Multuculturalilty in Canada at Ülenurme Gümnaasium – Grades 9-11, 110 students, 2 academic hours, contact teacher Milvi Tisler
• 05 Orienteering game on SDGs* at Nissi Põhikool – Grades 5-9, 100 students, 3 academic hours, contact teaher Day-Lee Holm
• 05 Orienteering game on SDGs at Narva Soldino Gümnasium – Grade 8, around 100 students, 4 academic hours, teacher Tatjana Okuneva. Overnight stay in Narva.

 Mondo koomiksite töötuba ÜG 6.-7.klassidele from Ülenurme Gümnaasium on Vimeo.

29 May -6 June – School visits

• 05 Orienteering game on SDGs at Pala Põhikool – Grades 4-8, 80 students, 3 academic hours, contact teacher Grete Stina Haaristo
• 05 22.05 Comics on SDGs at Ülenurme Gümnaasium – Grade 7, 70 students, 3 academic hours, contact teacher Milvi Tisler

• 06 Comics on SDGs at Jüri Gümnaasium – Grade 8, 40 students, 3 academic hours, contact teacher Kristi Mänd
• 06 Sum up meeting between AIESEC and Mondo

Altogether the ESD week activities reached over 550 students in differenet parts of Estonia adding up to 21 academic hours of workshops, exchanges and positive thinking!

 

 

Photo Essay – Munganga and Tamsalu

Munganga Secondary School and Tamsalu Gymnasium have a long history of partnership. As the latest activity, NGO Mondo volunteer in Kenya and Uganda Olle Kaidro and WEFOCO school coordinator Sophia Malaha organised a fun workshop for Munganga pupils and Anne Kraubner from Tamsalu gather her students to discover the pictures sent!

Step one – Receiving letters from Tamsalu’s students

Step two – Answering to Estonian partner school

Step three – Receiving letters from Munganga’s students

St. Stephen´s Eshiakhulo Secondary School – Wild Nature

Pupils in actions – reversed classroom

Hello! We are St. Stephen’s Eshiakhulo Secondary School in Kenya. Our WILD Nature activities involved groupwork around two tasks – messages of plants and making dolls with reused materials and natural materials. All students could work on the project they liked!

We hope our partner school, Toila Gymnasium will see them and organize their project work around the same topic.

 

Here you can see the pictures we draw. The most important plants in our nature are sugar cane and lemon tree with local importance and coffee tree as an international export article.

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The second group worked on making dolls. We used materials that we could easily find – plastic bags, seeds, plant fibers. It was really fun to get creative and make something with our hands! The ready-made dolls we brought to our younger siblings.

You can see the process from these pictures and the video:

One group got very artistic with their poster while using the colors of Kenyan national flag!One group got very artistic with their poster while using the colors of Kenyan national flag!

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One group got very artistic with their poster while using the colors of Kenyan national flag!

Look what Kaylee Shark did!

 

Zanlerigu Primary School and plants in our yard

Classes 4, 5 and 6 from Zanlerigu Primary took part of different school linking activities. From 7^th to 11^th of November.

Our friends from Estonia sent us a presentation about plants in their school yard. We looked at it with classes 6a and 6b and the Mondo teacher from Estonia was explaining the uses of these plants and some things about the climate and nature of Estonia. For us it is quite difficult to imagine a place than can be so cold at times. We made herbal tree from linden tree flowers and drank it together.

With class 6b we then went around our own school and talked about the ways we use the trees that are found here. The trees that we saw were Neem tree, Kapok, Flamboyant tree, Mahogany, Eucalyptus and Acacia. The most obvious benefit of all these trees is that they provide shade and coolness for us and our animals when the weather is very hot outside.

Some trees also have very special value for their beauty. For example in the beginning of rainy season the Flamboyant tree bears very decorative red flowers that are pleasing to look at. Flamboyant tree and Acacia belong to the the bean family of plants which means that they bear fruits that are stored on pods. These pods of seeds can be used to make different sounds and play music. These trees also have fern-like leaves that are made up of many small units attached to one leaf-stem.

The trees that have medicinal value are Neem tree and Mahogany. We can make tea from neem leaves, which can lower fever, clean blood, support liver function and much more. Around here people often use small sticks of neem tree to clean their teeth (the bark of neem is antiseptic and anti-inflammatory). The seeds inside neem berries can be used for making oil, which is widely used in production of cosmetics. This oil also has a use as natural insect repellent. Because neem is a fast growing tree it is also often used as firewood. Growing neem trees also makes the soil more fertile because the roots can grow very deep and bring minerals back to the surface of the ground.

Mahogany is a tree that is prized for the beautiful colour and texture of it’s wood. That is why it’s often used to make luxury furniture. Mahogany is a slow growing tree. We use the bark and sap of mahogany tree for medicine, especially to cure stomach pains. That is why when you see mahogany here, their trunks have many scars and holes in them. People routinely go to the tree to cut it and get medicine.

The Kapok tree has fruits that contain cotton like fibre. We use it to make pillows.

Eucalyptus is a tree uses up a lot of water from the ground, so people plant it to irrigate very wet areas.

After seeing all the plants and talking about them each student chose one tree and drew a picture of it also stating some of the uses of this tree.

With both classes 6a and 6b we read the letters from our friends from Kuristiku Gümnaasium and wrote letters about ourselves back.

Presentation Primary School: Trees around our school

A group of students from classes 1-6 from Presentation Primary School learned about the different trees that are found near our school. Our teacher David was telling us about the uses that these trees have.

The trees that we talked about were: Jatropha, Mahogany, Fig tree, Shea tree, Neem, Dawadawa. Red and yellow berry trees.

Jatropha is a plant that can be used to produce oil. Mahogony tree has very hard and beautiful wood and therefore is used for carpentry, but besides that it also has medicinal value in easing stomach pains. Neem tree is also used as medicine to lower fevers. Dawadawa tree fruits are very nutritious and we use it in many dishes (like soups, stews and rice dishes).

After seeing all the trees we went to the library and everybody chose one tree to draw. We made picture of the trees and wrote uses of them next to our drawings.

 

Zopeliga Primary School: story “Hawk and Hen”

With class 4 of Zopeliga Primary School we were telling folklore tales about different animals. Children knew a lot of stories and we had a good time listening to them. Then the students chose one story which we translated to English.

The story that we decided on is called “Hawk and Hen” and it’s about two friends: the hawk and the hen. They live together and both of them like to play drums. But the hen is a little bit lazy and doesn’t want to work or bring food to the house, she only wants to play drums. So because she is always lying about being sick to not do any work, the hawk gets angry with her and almost kills her one day. To save her own life hen promises to give one of her chick to hen every time she hatches a new set of baby hens. This is why hawk has been taking hen’s chicks ever since.

After doing the translation we divided the story into sections and each student participated in designing some part of our storybook. Some of us were drawing the illustrations, some were writing and some were making the page decorations.

The book turned out very nice and we’ll send it to our friends in Estonia to read.

Field trip to Pitanga rocks with Kongo Junior High School

Students from Kongo Junior Hight School forms 2 and 3 took a field trip to nearby Pitanga rocks on the 25^th of October 2016. Pitanga is a village next to our school which is famous for the big cliffs that it has. ‘Pii’ in nabt language means a rock so this means the village has been named after the cliffs.

We started our trip early in the morning so that the sun would not be too hot on us. On the way there we were singing and dancing. Some of the songs we had created for ourselves and some of them are local traditional songs.

While walking we also talked about the different plants and trees that grow here and discussed the ways we can use them in our daily lives. Some of the plants that we saw were: shea tree, dawadawa tree, burasus palm and the red berry tree.

The tree that has the most uses here is the shea tree. People eat the fresh fruits of it and use the nutty seeds inside the fruit to produce shea butter. Shea butter is widely used for cooking and skin care. In addition to the butter, people also cut the bark of the tree to get a special gum, which can be used for mending things or just as chewing gum. Also the leaves of it have some medicinal qualities so after boiling them in water the liquid can be used for bathing newly born babies. People use the wood that you get from shea tree to make different tools as well.

 

 

Cultural performances in Zua Primary School

Boys and girls from Zua Primary School are very good at dancing and singing. On 20^th of October 2016 we had a cultural performance day at the school to show different local dances to our friends in Estonia and other countries.

In front of the schoolhouse boys did the traditional War Dance. It is a dance usually performed on funerals. The tradition comes from old times when different tribes of our area were always fighting. When a person who had married to a different tribe died, their family members would suspect that somebody from the new tribe might have killed this person. To make sure if this had happened, they would dress in menacing war costumes, take weapons like bows and arrows with them and go to the funeral. There they would perform a dance to threaten the people of the new family and see if somebody gets scared of them. It was believed that he who shows fear might be the killer. These days the dance is performed as a traditional ritual, not out of necessity and is an important part of every funeral. Of course we did not have a funeral at the school, but because students have seen the dance done many times, they could show everybody what it looks like.

Then we gathered under the baobab tree where boys and girls showed different local dances.

Later in the day Godfred from class 5, who is a very talented musician, built a Kolog (local guitar). To do it he used a calabash, goat’s skin, pins, string and wood for the handle. When the instrument was finished we could sing and dance some more. We also learned to play one of estonian traditional instruments, the Parmupill (Jaw harp).

PS! We will add videos of the dances later, in December 🙂