First Academy in Sweden took place in Borås, Ymergården

On 12th September 2016 early in the morning came bus with the pupils, they were happy to participate in academy instead of usual school day! The total amount of children participated in Borås Ymergården academy was – 44.

The academy could happen thanks to our sponsor – Staples, which have in Borås their main office in Sweden. The event was free of charge for all participated children, they all were around 10 years old. The academy was able to take place thanks to german team, the Staples motivated environment and Johanna Ligmo-Linde’s quality manager work. The special thanks to local Plant-for-the-Planet coordination team presented by Julia Wolter, Charlotte Hansson and Adelya Salakhutdinova.

After quick welcome words, the attention was focused on the presentation ”Now we children save the world!” And then children were divided into three small groups. Through the World Game children could better understand the distributions and justice questions in the world. They placed the tokes, candies and balloons on the world maps placed on the floor, these items illustrated the world population and wealth in compare with CO2-emmissions.

Then the bus took children to the place in the forest where they could plant their own trees. Before the planting event children carefully listened the instructions given by the invited foresters. They went through the questions how and then should person plant and they also showed how the tree should be cared to guarantee it's survival and thus the ability to absorb as much CO2 as possible.

After a short break, we continued according to the programm. With one group of children was started the preparation of the presentation whihc will be hold in the end of the day in front of parents and other guests, the others were occupied by the World cafe modul. They worked through the following questions on a different parts of the room: ”What can we do to get the media interese?”, ”How can we influence adults?”, ”How can we influence friends and schoolmates?”, ”How can we organise the planting action?”

After everybody first have written down their thoughts about the received questions, they worked then in groups to come to a different solutions. Ideas and solutions should give the clear way for the following requests: What will we do in our school? Who will be responsible for each task? And when want we achieve our goal?

After long, amusing day filled with events, all 44 participants received the diploma which confirmed that they are now the ambassadors of the climate justice. It was a very interesting day which now came to an end. Besides all the experience and all the knowledge received, each new ambassador got the example of ”Tree by tree" book, as well as a Plant-for-the-Planet T-shirts which they received in the beginning of the day. Participated teachers were impressed by children performances.

You can find more fotos from this day in our Flickr album