Connect4Climate’s partners in the Teach For All network work tirelessly to give the next generation of leaders around the world the tools they need to take innovative action for their communities, countries, and planet. Below, you’ll hear from three young members of Teach For All’s Student Leader Advisory Council — Alexander, Tiyiso, and Milagros — on their experiences working across borders and generations to tackle the looming challenge of climate change.
Greening Schools for a Sustainable Future — Insights from Zimbabwe
By Tiyiso Mbelegi, student and climate education advocate
In Chiredzi, where I live in Zimbabwe, we, like many others, face environmental challenges such as deforestation, soil degradation and plastic pollution. Greening schools has emerged as an effective response to promote sustainable development. As a young leader with a desire to help build a better world where everyone can survive and thrive, l started a club called Learners in the Fight Against Climate Change, which focuses on climate education.
We seek to build valuable momentum behind the adaptation and mitigation measures that are needed to address climate change and environmental damage. As a team, we’ve gotten involved in a variety of activities, including seedbank collection, vegetable preservation, tree and flower planting, clean-up campaigns, and the recycling of plastic materials to pave pathways and beautify flowerbeds.
Below, I’ll explore three key strategies for greening schools in Chiredzi: establishing nutritional gardens, promoting the reuse of plastic materials, and conducting awareness campaigns. These strategies aim to enrich students’ education, improve their nutrition, reduce waste, and foster a sense of environmental responsibility.
1. Nutritional gardens
The establishment of nutritional gardens at my own school was what first showed me the power of greening educational spaces. These gardens serve as outdoor classrooms where students can learn about agriculture, nutrition, and sustainable food production. Incorporating these gardens into curricula empowers students to gain practical knowledge about environmental conservation and healthy eating habits. They give us the chance to learn how to grow our own fruits, vegetables and herbs, reducing our reliance on external providers and improving our food security.
Nutritional gardens also provide an opportunity for students to engage in physical activity, fostering healthy lifestyles. Planting, watering, and harvesting crops ourselves instills in us a sense of responsibility and ownership. Plus, this produce makes its way into school meal programs,improving our access to nutritious food.
2. Reuse of plastic materials
Plastic waste poses a significant environmental threat in my community. To address this issue, our local schools are doing their part to promote the reuse of plastic materials. Students are encouraged to collect plastic waste such as bottles and bags and creatively repurpose it.
School-organized workshops can demonstrate strategies for reusing plastic materials. For instance, plastic bottles can be transformed into plant pots or vertical gardens, reducing the need for traditional pots and promoting greener spaces. Plastic bags can be repurposed into practical supplies like mats or eco-bricks, which can be used in construction projects within the school.
Our schools collaborated with local recycling facilities to establish collection points where plastic waste can be properly disposed of or recycled. When students are involved firsthand in such initiatives, we develop a sense of environmental responsibility and learn the importance of reducing, reusing, and recycling plastic waste.
3. Awareness campaigns
Raising awareness among students, teachers, and the wider community is crucial to fostering a culture of environmental consciousness. Our schools organized regular awareness campaigns to educate and engage stakeholders on various environmental issues. These campaigns were implemented via interactive workshops, seminars, and exhibitions.
The awareness campaigns foregrounded sustainable practices, including waste management, water conservation, and energy efficiency. They also highlighted the significance of biodiversity conservation and the preservation of natural resources in the context of broader environmental challenges such as climate change and deforestation.
To maximize the impact of the campaigns, we collaborated with local environmental organizations and community leaders. This collaboration not only equipped us with expertise and resources, but also established a platform for the sharing of best practices and knowledge moving forward. Engaging external stakeholders such as parents and community members – many of whom were not aware of the climate crisis! – was vital to spreading the message beyond school and creating a lasting impact. And we are now in the process of petitioning government agencies to recognize marginalized areas like my community.
In conclusion, the greening of schools in my area through initiatives such as nutritional gardens, the reuse of plastic materials, and awareness campaigns exemplifies a powerful approach to transforming our education systems for sustainable development. These initiatives provide students with hands-on learning experiences that promote healthy, eco-conscious habits and instill a sense of environmental responsibility. By incorporating these practices into their curricula and engaging wider communities, schools can do their part in laying the groundwork for a sustainable future – here in Zimbabwe and worldwide.
Echoes of Change: Empowering School Communities Through Recycling and Environmental Education in Peru
By Milagros Zavala, student and youth association founder
Since childhood, I've been passionate about the wonders of the natural world, from the tiniest creatures to the towering trees and glaciers. This passion underpins my commitment to preserving our planet, starting with seemingly small actions that can come together to make a big difference for our communities and beyond.
In 2021, when I was 14, I embarked on a deeply personal project to engage my school community. At the age of four, my cousin suffered burns covering 70% of his body, requiring a complex treatment regimen – including psychological and social reintegration therapy, physical therapy, and expensive medications – that put my family under financial strain. Fortunately, they received support from ANIQUEM, the only self-sustaining nonprofit organization in Peru providing comprehensive rehabilitation free of charge to burn survivors. Since then, I've felt compelled to give back in gratitude. My project idea? To "help the helpers" at ANIQUEM through recycling!
I designed a recycling module where paper and plastic bottle caps could be collected for donation to ANIQUEM every three months. Recycling would give these materials new value, and the earnings from their sale would be transformed into funds to cover the treatments of numerous young burn survivors like my cousin. I chose this method to support ANIQUEM because of its dual impact, aiding the children at ANIQUEM while also raising awareness of eco-friendly habits throughout my school community, resonating even with our youngest members.
Of course, this process was not without its challenges. Executing the project during a pandemic made it tricky at first to garner the attention and support we needed from members of the school community. Building the module itself required donations from a private company, and I initially struggled to secure approval from the school administration to solicit this funding. Still, though met with skepticism early on, I persevered, assuming responsibility for waste management and rallying parents and students to participate. Indeed, parents and teachers were ultimately instrumental in building out the idea, underscoring the need for teamwork across generations.
It's been immensely gratifying to witness the project's success and expansion in the years since its launch. We now enjoy the support of the neighboring community and hundreds of families from across Lima who have joined us in collecting their waste for recycling. Our very first quarterly delivery totalled 1.5 tons of waste – saving 14,000 gallons of water and preventing the felling of 34 trees – and since then we’ve continued to improve on this figure. Given this impact, coupled with that of fostering a culture of environmental responsibility in my community, I’d call the initiative a sweeping success – and this success is one that has the potential to be replicated in many other schools worldwide. My aim is for this to one day become state policy, with every school equipped with a recycling module to foster personal commitment and community engagement towards helping the environment.
Recycling, though simple, can have transformative power at scale. Fostering awareness of such techniques is key in a developing country like Peru. Since launching the project, I've had opportunities to deliver dedicated talks, both within and outside the school, raising awareness about combating climate change — a global issue. Seeing younger children express genuine interest in eco-friendly practices and wholeheartedly engage in activities to safeguard our planet through simple actions fills me with joy. In Peru and South America more broadly, there's still much ground to cover in environmental education, despite the danger our territories face from the harsh effects of climate change.
I invite readers to nurture the creativity and enthusiasm of younger generations to take steps in favor of the planet, cultivating an eco-friendly culture from an early age. Environmental education is the bedrock of the action our Earth needs.
The Need for Intergenerational Action – in Mexico and Beyond
By Sergio Alexander Guel Tonche, economics student committed to social development
“Climate change is a phenomenon that transforms the reality we live in. Over time, it becomes more severe, causing catastrophes so great that they could threaten life itself. Due to the actions we have taken in the past, today we are facing a dire reality, and it is in the hands of the new generations to change the future.” This is the message that my teachers shared with me during my classes – a message of responsibility and awareness, and simultaneously a warning of the consequences that could occur if we continue to ignore this crisis. It wasn't until I entered university that I heard this message again, this time from a socially conscious businessman who, like me, wondered how we could envision a better future – a future with water and clean air, completely different from what we experience today in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico.
For the past 3 years, Nuevo León has been experiencing water scarcity, a phenomenon never before seen in the state. Since its transition to an industrial state, not only has the amount of natural resources necessary to continue business operations increased, but also the amount of work required, along with the influx of people hoping for better job opportunities. This includes populations from other states and migrants who are leaving their home countries in search of better political, economic, and social conditions. Many are drawn to Mexico as a place where they can safely assert their rights, with the ultimate goal of crossing the border into the United States in pursuit of a dream few are able to achieve. This population growth was not accompanied by appropriate infrastructure improvements, leading to the situation we find ourselves in today: constant cuts in supply without prior notice, entire neighborhoods where water is a privilege, and residents living in hope of seeing this resource again.
With characteristics that do not favor rainfall, the city of Monterrey, famously surrounded by mountains, has a semi-desert climate. It has turned to "cloud seeding" to generate rain and increase the capacity of dams that have reached historic lows, unable to meet the needs of the entire population. Meanwhile, the production of companies in the region continues apace — economic progress is a priority, but sustainability waits, as do Mexican families.
Industrial development has improved economic conditions and job opportunities in the state, but the lack of regulations and sustainable planning accompanying it has had a dire effect on air quality, making the state the most polluted in the country. These conditions quickly impacted the health of individuals, causing constant respiratory illnesses, and that of the environment, disrupting weather patterns such that temperatures now fluctuate wildly throughout the day. These effects fundamentally undermine human rights to health and a stable environment, leaving residents further away from a dignified life.
What I present here is by no means localized to Monterrey. Indeed, water scarcity has become a common subject of discussion at the table of every Mexican family, with the problem spreading to other states at an alarming rate, generating not only economic but also social problems. As water becomes scarcer, the desire for solutions increases. To realize the change that’s needed, we must overcome apathy and hopelessness at the state and individual levels.
Are our past decisions irreversible? The reality is that we still have the possibility to act; when we look at the past, it is only to learn. We shape the future through our present actions.
When I spoke with that entrepreneur about the water issue, the end of the conversation was, "It's in your hands and the hands of the young to solve this problem, an inheritance we have poorly left them." But this abrogation of responsibility rang hollow. Perhaps the problems we’re facing now could be considered a sort of inheritance – but as long as this is an issue for all of us, it will be everyone's responsibility to contribute to the solution, regardless of the generation to which they belong.
The scale of this problem is so vast that it's no longer possible to think any other way; we must work together to take the actions that are needed. This is why concerned citizens of the world are raising their voices and pooling their efforts: because we all must build the future together.
