The Office of Climate Change on Friday held its first workshop with students of St Gabriel’s Primary School, and the topics discussed concerned raising awareness of climate change, and how those children can help to save their environment. The awareness programme is a collaborative effort between the Office of Climate Change and the Caribbean Youth Environment Network (CYEN).
Communication Specialist Yasmin Bowman told the Government Information Agency (GINA) that the awareness programme aims to teach the schoolchildren about the impacts and effects of climate change. “What we are doing this year as an outreach initiative is that we are going to the various schools around the country to bring awareness to the little ones about climate change in general,”
A section of the St Gabriel Primary School students who attended the climate change awareness and outreach programme
Bowman explained.
She highlighted that 20 schools would be targeted for sessions in the first half of 2017, and stressed that the awareness programme caters for all levels of school institutions, since the office would adapt techniques to teach the students. “We are going as small, as low as the nursery children; we have primary, nursery and secondary children. For the nursery children, the format for the awareness session will be in the form of a puppet show, because we know that the little ones are a bit more visual; and so, to (give) them a bit more understanding, we are going to do a bit of puppetry,” she explained.
Bowman highlighted that at the conclusion of the workshop the students will be quizzed about what they would have learnt, and prizes will be given as incentives. After the targeted number from the 20 schools along the coast has been met, the awareness programme will continue throughout the year, targeting other schools.
Natural Resources Minister Raphael Trotman, at the commemoration of World Environment Day (WED) last year, had urged youths to become stewards of the environment. He had asked the gathering to consider Guyana as one of the world’s most important countries for biodiversity conservation, since the country boasts the world’s highest biodiversity per capita and has one of the highest levels of biological diversity and concentration.
