MRCG ESTABLISHES CLIMATE CHANGE SCHOOL CLUBS IN SIX COASTAL COMMUNITIES
The Media Reform Coordinating Group has engaged pupils of different schools in the six coastal communities
of Lakka, Hamilton, Tombo, Conakry Dee, Shenge and Turtle Island on climate risks awareness and established climate change school clubs. With funding support from the UNDP, the MRCG established seventeen (17) ‘Climate Change School Clubs’ in the six communities- 20 pupils per community, 120 in total for the six communities. Members of the school clubs are to serve as ambassadors of climate change in their communities. In Lakka, four schools were targeted; Hamilton, three schools; Tombo, four schools; Conakry Dee, three schools; Shenge, two schools, and Turtle Island (Cheppo) one school. In each of the communities, the biggest school hosted the engagement.
The engagement took place in Lakka on the 13th October, 2020; Hamilton the 14th October, 2020; Tombo the 15th October 2020; Conakry Dee the 18th October, 2020; Turtle Island on the 3rd November, 2020; and Shenge community on the 4th November, 2020. With the engagement, the awareness of hundreds of pupils were raised on climate change risks awareness, the causes of climate changes (activities undertaken in the various communities causing climate change), the effects of climate change due to those activities and the mitigation strategies (solutions/adaptation plans). “With the pupils being engaged on climate risks awareness, they are better placed in creating awareness and convincing their parents and other community members to stop or reduce activities that they are engaged in leading to climate change which has the tendency to expose their community to risk and destruction,” explained Usman Bah, MRCG Project Officer.
The principals and representatives of the host schools in the six coastal communities thanked the MRCG and UNDP for such initiative and pleaded for the MRCG and UNDP to prepare materials out of their different engagements and research on climate change so that they can be used to teach the pupils on climate risks awareness. “The Shenge and Turtle Island communities need such engagements as our communities have many villages around who are affected by climate change. Targeting Shenge town and Cheppo can be a start but the other communities also needed such engagements. Targeting pupils is the right call as all the villages around Shenge and Cheppo do send their children to us to learn and hence those children with the right knowledge and awareness on climate change can better take the messages of climate change to their parents which can create a positive impact,” expressed the Principal of the Howard Memorial Secondary school, Hankai Emmanuel.
Pupils of the various school clubs pledged their support and commitment to campaign against climate change activities as they called on the UNDP to support them with badges or tags to identify them as ambassadors, T-shirts for visibility sake, posters and stickers to help in their awareness campaign, megaphone and batteries support and refreshment support for meetings and outreach campaign programs. Hamilton climate change school club Cheppo in Turtle Island school engagement Conakry Dee schools engagement Lakka schools engagement