First Academy of 2018 in Mali!

In Mali, for its second year, the Plant-for-the-Planet Foundation in partnership with the Climate Smart Agriculture Network association in Mali (CSAYN Mali) has proceeded to the first 2018 Plant-for-the-Planet Academy in the DOGOBALA fundamental school of Moribabougou in Bamako on April, 22 2018.

The goal of this project is to promote education and environmental culture to young Malians. The academy educates the youth about the causes and effects of the climate crisis, trains the children to become Climate Justice Ambassadors and motivates them to plant trees. About 80 children were made aware of the causes, consequences and potential solutions of the climate crisis with activities like the World Game, the World Café and working in school groups. Furthermore the children founded a club and planted 30 trees in the courtyard of the school.

As mentioned earlier, the participants and facilitators had dynamic and interactive exchanges while participating in modules such as the introductory Plant-for-the-Planet presentation. This began with a presentation and a question and answer session afterwards to clear out potential misunderstandings in the group. The group continued and split up into 7 groups to play the World Game in which the participants gather around a map of the world in order to discuss themes like the classification of the most populous and less populated continents, their degree of wealth, pollution, CO2 emissions, etc. a rhetoric training followed, during this module, 4 volunteers from the participants had to read 4 texts on the effects of the climate crisis in front of the other participants in order to initiate the discussion on tips of public speaking art and postures to be adopted. The World Café and school group work has allowed all participants to be able to determine the main activities that Ambassadors of the Club for climate Justice of the fundamental school of Dogobala will want to do for the next School year. Thus, as a plan of action, they agreed to set up activities for the restitution of the academy to their classmates, actions of trees planting and implementation of fun activities to raise awareness about effects related to climate change.

At the end of the academy, in order to perpetuate actions and activities carried out, a Plant-for-the-Planet club of Climate Justice Ambassadors to coordinate actions was put in place. The members of the Plant-for-the-Planet Club unanimously decided to choose Mariam, Drissa and Seydou as coordinators. There are other projects planned, which will be easier with a Club and 80 new Climate Justice Ambassadors trained in Mali.

If you are interested in looking at more photos from the academy, check out our Flickr album.

Do you want to become a Climate Justice Ambassador? Check out the dates here.