Linden schools benefit from OCC’s awareness sessions

Learning about climate change was made simple and fun for students of various schools in Linden, Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice), as the Office of Climate Change (OCC) within the Ministry of the Presidency took its climate change awareness outreach initiative to the community.

The countrywide outreach is being conducted in partnership with Caribbean Youth Environment Network (CYEN) Guyana. Students of the Mackenzie Primary School and the Linden Technical Institute (LTI) were beneficiaries of the interactive learning sessions on Friday. The interactions centred on climate change, its causes and effects as well as students’ role in fighting the effects. Communications Specialist within the OCC, Yasmin Bowman explained that the objective was basically to spread awareness.
“We’ve been going around to a number of schools, both primary and secondary schools so far. And we’ve been bringing climate change awareness to young people…We want to talk to you about flooding, droughts. We want to talk to you about climate change in general…We want to learn from you too”, she told students.
CYEN Guyana volunteer Nicholas Imhoff, who formed part of the team, explained that already primary and secondary schools in Georgetown and Berbice have benefited and the team also hoped to go to Essequibo as well as to engage nursery schools across the country next. He said the team was simply trying to shine the light on climate change and to get students involved in the fight against its negative impacts. Imhoff noted that students in Linden were very enthusiastic during the sessions and the feedback has been great. During the interactive sessions, students were awarded prizes, including flash drives and T- shirts for their active participation. The LTI was the first technical institute in Guyana to benefit from the awareness session so far.