Kathmandu: Earth Child Institute (ECI) Nepal officially inaugurated its first initiative “Global School Campaign” on Jan 21, Saturday, to inform and empower children on global environmental issues, and encourage them to adopt green, healthy and sustainable lifestyles in their schools and communities.

To achieve the goal, they are envisioning to collaborate with 200 schools around the country and reach out to around 1, 00,000 students.

With the mission statement “Power of One Child + One Tree = A sustainable future”, it also aims to inspire each child and youth to understand the value of ecosystem services to their lives, and to plant a tree instilling a sense of personal responsibility and necessary life skills for survival.

Many exemplary people who have left remarkable imprints in various sectors like health and sanitation, environment and conservation were a part of the program and all of them acknowledged the concept, and offered to help from their side with a reminder that anybody can plant trees, and it has been done a lot in the past.



“The main thing is to nurture it after it has been planted and sustain it for a long time.”says Madhav Pahari, the WASH specialist at UNICEF

The program also had international delegates from Brazil, China and Germany gave presentations on how climate change and global warming is becoming a bane to their economies, and the mitigation steps their nation is taking to abate the threats.

Giovanna Lunkmoss Christo from Brazil explained how the emissions of CO2 is increasing in her country because of poisonous gases from many industries, clearance of forests, and causing deluges and droughts which is taking many lives and spreading famine.

Christo in her presentation demonstrated how her country’s citizens are making use of alternate energies and environment friendly vehicles to mitigate the effects.

The Chinese delegate Liu Chen shared how China always aspired to be like America, and achieved it by maintaining a high gross domestic product, but the aftermath of it was pollution and the outbreak of many diseases. “We still want to be the biggest economy, but beyond that, we want to have a clean, green and healthy environment,” he adds.

The representative of Germany also talked about how the citizens of her country are suffering because of their luxurious life, and since problems are coming at an alarming rate, they are changing many policies and going green these days.

source: republica, 22 Jan 2012