My Place My Life
(Original)

Christian Rusangwa
(Age 24, Rwanda)
National University of Rwanda

Rwanda is a landlocked developing country in central Africa. It continues to recover from the 1994 civil war and genocide in which at least 1,000,000 people were killed. Its population is now evaluated at 9,000,000 habitants. Located in east-central Africa, it is surrounded by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Tanzania, and Burundi. Steep mountains and deep valleys cover most of the country. Lake Kivu in the west, at an altitude of 1,472 m, is the highest lake in Africa. Extending north of it are the Virunga Mountains where gentle silver back mountain gorillas are found, which include the volcano Karisimbi (14,187 ft; 4,324 m), Rwanda's highest point.

The civil war and the genocide made a negative impact on conservation and protected areas; the environment as a whole was seriously deteriorated as well. Now that the country is recovering from its past, it is important to put effort in restoring the environment and protecting it from further degradation. In a country with sixty percent of the population are living under the poverty line and experiencing high rate of illiteracy, it is crucial to consider the historical and socio cultural factors in order to carry out a successful sensitization.

The fore-described scenarios shaped my will to give my input in changing the Rwandan society starting from my community; my focus will be on children education about environment protection through a project named the GLOBE KEEPERS Initiative on the theme MY PLACE, MY LIFE. The project will be located in the southern province of Rwanda in the district of Huye in a village where people have been newly resettled. We will be working in primary schools of that area and interact with students and parents of teenagers to talk about appropriate environment protection education. There are more than 10 primary schools in the locality. It takes about 30 minutes to go to the village riding a bicycle from the Butare city (in which the National University is constructed), the second city of Rwanda. The project is about raising the awareness especially of the younger generations about the urgent need to think and act responsibly about the destiny of Planet Earth by organizing peer education interactive sessions about environment protection.

Twenty volunteers will be recruited from the university students and follow a three days seminar on communication skills and environment protection issues then we will carry out a four month pilot project in three primary schools. The environment education will be conducted through two interactive educational sessions per week and 1 field trip per month in chosen primary schools. There is also an idea of creating environment protection clubs that will be led by youth for youth perspective. It is hoped that students will use the gained knowledge to spread the information to their peer in order to achieve a behavioural impact within the community and promote positive attitudes towards environment, through eco friendly activities like planting trees, protecting wetland, using reusable materials, using composted fertilizers in agriculture, protecting water spaces such as lakes and rivers; also through the promotion of ecotourism for young people in our region so that by discovering its richness they should act more responsibly towards the environment. During the pilot project the GLOBE KEEPERS Initiative will work in conjunction with local authorities, NGOs and all institutions which deal with the protection of the environment to promote and inform the general public on the issues affecting the environment today.

To assess the impact of these interactive sessions and field trips, different contests about environmental issues are scheduled; this will be done through Essay Writing, Photography, Arts, Music, Sports and Poetry Contests among others. This will serve as a pilot project before a bigger project that will run in December where we will be working with ten primary schools.

GLOBE KEEPERS Initiative, wants children and youth in general to recognize that they are important, because it is their responsibility to protect and sustain their own future. They cannot count on others doing it for them. It is also their job to inspire others to do the same. Since it is actually not just their future but our future.