The Academy in Osogbo, Nigeria was a great success with 68 participating children

The event hall was opened at exactly 9am as participants started coming from all schools. This academy was unique because all the participating schools were from Public Schools-Government owned schools. Due to that, we have in attendance government dignitaries’ from Osun Central Educational office being led by the Permanent secretary –Dr. Bunmi Obisesan who led other government officials to witness the event.

The program coordinator, Prince Olawuyi Oluwaseyi, welcomes all the participants especially the government representatives and the principals of the participating schools to the event-Plant for the Planet Academy. He introduced his assistants/Colleagues and informed the participants about the objectives of the event. He urged them to pay attention to the lectures as the content of the lectures would help them a lot.

The invited Ambassador is Abdul Rahmon Adebayo from Adeojo School, Ibadan was in attendance. Favour and Omigbodun couldn’t attend due to their school actvities. Abdul Rahmon started the lectures using Climate Justice Power-Point presentation.

During the lectures, the Climate Justice Ambassador introduced himself, he discussed, the needs to protect the planet, the causes of Climate change (Natural and Human). He spoke about Green house gases, CO2, methane, etc. He took time to explain human induced activities which are the well pronounced causes of Climate change which include emission through deforestation, ship, aircrafts, industries, etc. He spoke about the effects of climate change such as famine, drought, flood, climate refugees, rise in the sea level, etc  He stressed on the needs to plant more trees, shifting to clean energy and many other things and needs for the participants to join hands with plant for the planet in realizing their objectives. He ended the presentation by urging other students to join them in promoting the concept.

Series of questions were asked after the lectures which include, ‘Does present economic recession in the country affect your program, besides, do you think Nigeria is doing well in curbing Climate change, where can we get seedlings to plant and many more? The Program Coordinator answered some of the questions asked by the participants and buttressed some of the points raised during the lecture.

The participants watched ‘The Man who planted Trees’ and the participants went on break and they were resumed back engaged in school group and world Cafe discussion. The participants were trained on how to make public presentation, during the event some brilliant students were selected, which include Afolabi Deborah, Adeleke Sunday, Adegoke JamiuAbdul Azeez Ibrahim.

The participants during their discussion came up with action plans to enable them further promote the concepts in their various communities. They came up with the idea of planting more trees in their various communities and schools, reaching out to media houses, printing of handbills for distributions and seeking their parents support.

The participants later went outside the Hall to plant some trees, in the field the participants were taught on how best to plant and the good time to plant and the needs to ensure that they nurture the trees well and guide it from being eating by animals. The participants planted 6 –trees seedlings within the St. Mark College premises. The planting session was led by staff of Prince O Concepts, Mr Olasunkanmi Dolapo.

The selected ambassadors presented their requests before the state government representatives.The government official at the event, Dr Obisesan Bunmi thanked the organiser of the event, he expressed his joy and promised that he would send the report to the state governor to look into the project and see how they can support the project.

Other activities during the program are presentation of Certificates to all participants which was led by the representatives of the state government in attendance. Creative games were playing to refresh participants’ brains. The program coordinator made announcement about the forthcoming academy coming up at 25^th February, 2017 at Jumokol College Hall, Ifelodun Area, Muslim, Ibadan, Oyo state.

The event came to an end at exactly 6pm. The participants were all happy and expressed their joy!

You can find more pictures here.