GlobalGiving.org: Empower 50,000 Young Green Ambassadors in China

Our new video 'The secret lives of our clothes'

Ina Kukovic — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 13:01:57 GMT

Dear Global Giving friends,

We are very happy to announce our new video 'The secret lives of our clothes', that we created to help consumers around the world to understand their impact and their real purchasing power. We all know that there is a price tag that’s being hidden from us every day. Not the one that tells us how much money to pay, but the one that adds up the hidden costs, like sweatshop labor, industrial pollution, and toxic chemicals in products. Check out GECKO's new video to find out the hidden price of your jeans! http://www.greennovate.org/ the-secret-lives-of-our-clothes

You've been supporting our non-profit community initiative for the past 2 years. Our GECKO program initially offered innovative educational lessons, to students attending high school and university around China. The scheme’s main objectives were to inspire pupils to become green ambassadors within their own communities and to assist in potential career choices, by familiarising young people with local industries supportive of environmental progress. Since its founding, GECKO has reached out to over 20,000 students in more than 100 schools in 14 provinces throughout China.

GECKO’s encouraging start led our team to expand our efforts and develop an e-learning platform to make the curriculum more accessible to the masses. In August 2011, GECKO Online, a series of virtual animated environmental lectures were released, with the purpose of offering free educational resources to anyone with a keen green interest. So far, lectures have been created on www.greennovate.org with the following topics in English and Chinese; Lessons from the Past, Energy for the Future, Solving Sustainability Challenges, The Journey of Sustainable Business and The Secret lives of our clothes. Moving forwards, GECKO Online will provide a new lesson each month, addressing most urgent topics around food, waste, cosmetics, water and so on.

Our lessons have been viewed not only in China, but almost half of the visitors are now coming from abroad. If you would like to follow our progress and help us spread the word, please like us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gecko-Online/180489448699876 or join us on Twitter @greennovate.

We hope to increase our impact and reach viewers both throughout China and abroad, helping to inspire people everywhere and help foster a generation who understand and appreciate the value of sustainability.

Thank you all for your support!

The Greennovate team

Links:

The Secret Lives Of Our Clothes

Green Footprints critical mass in Guangzhou

Ina Kukovic — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 09:33:22 GMT

With all the business + sustainability training we’ve been doing with FedEx in 6 cities throughout China since September, we thought we’d do something a little different to break the office monotony, and bring what we teach to the great outdoors. Together with Biker Guangzhou, a local environmental group that has been promoting green commuting in Guangzhou City, we organized a community bike ride for about 60 FedEx employees with their friends and family at the Guangzhou Higher Education Mega Centre where 10 local institutions are located on Xiaoguwei Island. It was a great turnout and a true team-bonding experience for everyone.

Launching GECKO Online Platform

Ina Kukovic — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 06:44:43 GMT

Dear supporters,

We have exciting news! We have been working on putting our best environmental lectures online, and with the generous help of the adventurous Wheel2Wheel team we are launching our GECKO online platform this month.

We were developing, programming and discussing all summer and the first three lectures are ready: Lesson from the Past, Solving Sustainability Challenges and Energy for the Future. The main goal of our e-learning platform is to offer free educational resources for everyone interested in sustainability to help them connect the dots on relevant topics. It will also be used to supplement the efforts of our GECKO trainers who are teaching about the environment all throughout China. We believe the combination of the platform and our trainers will extend our outreach and create a bigger impact in terms of raising environmental awareness. For more information, check out www.greennovate.org.

Links:

http://www.greennovate.org/gecko-e-learning

Weel2Weel support for GECKO on-line platfrom

Ina Kukovic — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 09:02:44 GMT

Morgan

This year, we were celebrating World Environment Day with a very special announcement. Since March 1st 2011, Morgan Parker and the Wheel2Wheel crew have been traveling across ten countries. Commencing in Hong Kong and finishing in Australia, raising awareness and providing financial assistant to local causes. Our GECKO program was the featured cause for Morgan’s journey through China and today, Wheel2Wheel announced financial support for our GECKO on line platform. Through their support, we will be able to develop the first set of on line lectures about environmental sustainability for Chinese students and young professionals. These on line lectures will supplement the efforts of Greennovate’s many trainers around China who are teaching about the environment. We believe the combination of the online platform and our student trainers will raise awareness amongst people in China about what they, as individuals, can do to reduce their environmental footprint. Congratulations to Morgan as he enters his native Australia next Monday and completes his final month of the Wheel2Wheel expedition! Stay tuned and check back with us in September when we launch the first test on line lectures.

Links:

GECKO (Greennovate Environmental Challenge for Kids Outreach)

GECKO in Yangshuo with Wheel2Wheel

Tom Bley — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 06:33:00 GMT

Interviewing students after the GECKO class

Dear supporters,

We just got back from a three-day trip in Yangshuo in South China, where we joined Morgan Parker and his team of Wheel2Wheel. Wheel2Wheel is an independent non-profit organization created to raise awareness and provide financial assistance to grassroots projects throughout Australasia.

We were invited to participate as to present our GECKO program in the school in Yangshuo and discuss our challenges and needs. The Wheel2Wheel team showed a great commitment to their mission. Adventurer Morgan has a tough journey of 20,000 kilometers ahead with 10 countries and 10 charitable organizations to visit.

We decided to choose Yangshou as a location for meeting Wheel2Wheel. because the town is an example of a place which needs conservation and promotion of eco-tourism. Besides, the beautiful mountains provided a stunning backdrop for film, which will turn Morgan's journey into a TV series.

For us Greennovators, was really great being back in Yangshuo and seeing how the city cleaned up since our last visit in 2009. We noticed much larger interest among students and teachers of Yangshuo Vocational Technical School, and were continuously invited to come back again, and to permanently integrate the GECKO program into the curriculum.

The Wheel2Wheel journey and persistence of the team working behind it is just another indicator that combining business skills with social potential can challenge old paradigms and make a big change happen. Stay tuned for GECKO's TV appearance.

Onwards,
Tom Bley

In class with Morgan Parker

Greennovators with adventurer Morgan Parker

Links:

Looking back at the year 2010 for GECKO

Mihela Hladin — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 07:48:01 GMT

Volunteers at a GECKO Training Session in Chengdu

Dear supporters,

it's the end of the year and I wanted to share our achievements with all of you that helped us with your individual contributions.
COP 16 kicked off yesterday with very modest expectations compared to last year. But we at Greennovate strongly believe that this is the time to be ambitious. Why? Because we are witnessing exponential growth in green actions and awareness in China.
One of the obvious and measurable signs for growing momentum in China is our GECKO program. Although still limited in resources, over the past 3 years what started as a ripple has become a wave. And it didn't happen just because of us. It happened because more and more young people in China are asking the same question:'What can I do for the environment?'

Here is an update with GECKO numbers from the year 2010. Not all projects are finished yet - we are still in process of getting feedbacks from some teams - but here they are until today:

We held 22 Train the Trainer sessions for university students in major cities around China
We added 297 university student trainers and 69 corporate trainers to our trainer database
The GECKO program was taught in 38 high schools and middle schools, with 13,307 kids involved in 19 cities around China
We held 24 sustainability related events in our office and on our rooftop with more then 1100 participants

Compared to the year 2008, when we taught 1500 kids, and 2009 when we had 3792 kids in the program, that is quite a big step. With a three times bigger impact this year, we are closer to our goal. Next year we will be adding online tools to our existing platform, enabling students to deepen their knowledge and access training materials via the internet.

We are thankful to all of you who have been helping us to spread environmental awareness. It took a lot of work and dedication to make this happen. We don't flatter ourselves that all of the students and GECKO participants will go ahead and make significant impact. But some of them will. Education is not about filling up a bottle, its about lighting a fire. And there is a lot of youth out there that needs that fire: knowledge and tools to create opportunities for greener China.

I wish you a green year ahead,

Mihela

Founder and Director

GECKO partners with student clubs in eight cities

Tom Bley — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 02:39:51 GMT

It's the start of a new semester at Chinese universities, and GECKO
will be there. We have set up partnerships with student clubs in eight
Chinese cities: Chengdu, Nanjing, Guangzhuo, Ningbo, Dalian, Tianjin,
Shanghai, and Beijing.
The new partnerships have been formed as a result of a selection
process, based on project plans that every club submitted. The
application details included a implementation plan, timeline, and
budget.

The selected clubs will receive a bundle of benefits from Greennovate
in support of their project. We will visit them in their city, do
environmental awareness trainings and networking events with them, and
give them continuous project management support.
In exchange, all clubs committed to recruit volunteers for GECKO, and
to give environmental education classes to up to 3000 people.

Groups teaching GECKO in the summer

Ina Kukovic — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 11:02:01 GMT

Guifang Volunteers

This summer, several groups of young people are taking their backpacks and leave the big cities of China, to go to the hinterland and bring sustainability education to children. We want to introduce three groups:

Guiyang: Organized by AIESEC at Tsinghua University, twenty volunteers from China and around the world came to Beijing to prepare for an adventurous summertime in Guiyang. With the help of Greennovate, the students learned how to be a teacher and what matters when talking about sustainability to children. Right now, the summer camp is underway in Guiyang, in Xifeng County. The organizers plan to establish long-term partnership, to carry on with green activities even after the camp.

Sichuan and Guizhou: A few weeks ago, we received 11 energetic students from countries all over the world in our green office in Shanghai. They were AIESEC volunteers, about to embark on a long train journey to Sichuan and Guizhou, were they were to travel to different schools to teach the GECKO program to local children.

Qinghai: A group of 16 students from Shanghai International Studies University, who already finished their trip to Qinghai province recently, to teach the GECKO program at local High Schools. This is the second year that students went to Qinghai for this purpose. We will hear about their experiences soon!

Sichuan group in training

Train the Trainer Program Spreading Across China!

Schuyler Olsson — Thu, 20 May 2010 06:14:28 GMT

AIESEC Training in Ningbo

Dear Supporters of GECKO,

I hope everyone is enjoying the onset of warmer weather – we’ve been keeping busy in Shanghai and around China as it begins to get hot and muggy.

The end of April saw our third annual Earth Day event, which was a lot of fun! Check out a video made by our interns at [http://u.youku.com/user_show/uid_Greennovate] or read a short report at earthday.greennovate.net.

Furthermore, our Greennovate Train the Trainer Program continues to spread to different cities across China - including Ningbo, Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou. We’ve been training teams of university students, both foreign and Chinese, who will be visiting high schools in Shanghai and around the country throughout the coming weeks. Right now, we have a team of 15 Chinese students who are preparing for a trip to Qinghai province to bring environmental workshops to local schools! Visit [http://is.gd/cgTh6] to watch a video of last year’s Qinghai trip on youtube!

Also this week was the launch of Green Connections, a new way to interact directly with the Chinese youth to whom we have reached out through our non-profit initiatives - GECKO and MaGiC. Published through email solely in Chinese, Green Connections will share best practices from projects at past GECKO schools and broaden student’s knowledge through the latest environmental news!

And in case you haven’t seen, check out our Greennovate Introduction video and meet our team members on youtube at [http://is.gd/cgTh6]!

Thanks your support!

Schuyler

Earth Day 2010 Cool Your Bike Show

New Trainers Petter, Novianti teach GECKO in SH

Links:

Earth Day 2010 and Sustainability Training

Schuyler Olsson — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 02:26:03 GMT

Earth Day 2010 - A DIY by Greennovate

Dear GECKO Supporters,

It’s been a busy spring for us so far at Greennovate! The World Expo is around the corner, but first we have our DIY Earth Day event next Thursday, April 22nd. Those of you living in Shanghai – mark it in your calendars! (528 Kangding Road at 6 pm). It will be an awesome night – including a sustainable fashion show, an organic rooftop garden planting, a local band concert, a “cool your bike” workshop, and more. The event will be free, so please stop by! (check out http://earthday.greennovate.net for more info)

We are also excited to announce the upcoming successful finish of our first “Seeds for Sustainability” series for current and future GECKO trainers. The four–part lecture series provides a more in-depth look at ecology and sustainability, empowering student volunteers with greater flexibility and confidence when teaching in the high schools and giving them valuable insights to be taken into future careers.

As for the GECKO program itself – we’ve just finished our third module with rural high schools in Mogan Shan, and our partnership with AIESEC is ever-growing (most recently in Beijing late last month, where we trained a diverse group of student volunteers who have begun to bring GECKO to Beijing high schools).

That’s it for now – stay tuned for more.

Thank you for your continued support!

Happy Earth Day,

Schuyler

Seeds for Sustainability Training

Students in Mogan Mtn learn not to fish too fast!

Links:

An apology for the confusion

Schuyler Olsson — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 05:27:45 GMT

Dear all, On behalf of the Greennovate team, I would like to apologize for the technical error we experienced recently through Global Giving - which resulted in my last update being sent out prematurely. I am sure many of you were confused by the wording of the message. For those of you who are still interested in donating, I would just like to clarify that your donation will be matched 30% if made before 4 pm EST on March 16th. Thanks for your understanding and your support! Schuyler

Donations matched TODAY only!

Schuyler Olsson — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:44:21 GMT

Volunteer Winnie teaches at Paitou middle school

Hi everyone, GECKO is really starting to heat up again this year (meaning more activities, more impacted children, and less sleep for us). We have big plans for the months ahead and we’ll need your help! Before I give you a brief report of our awesome visit to Moganshan last week – I’d like to ask you to consider making a small donation to GECKO today, because we really do rely on the support of thoughtful, green-minded people like you! Each donation made by 4:00 pm EST on March 16th will be matched 30%, up to $1,000. Now, for the good part: Last week, we reached out to Chinese youth in the snowy Mogan Mountain, impacting over 120 students. Please, if you have a minute, read a short blog entry about the trip written about by one of our most passionate Chinese student volunteers, Winnie Rui. It can be seen here: http://www.greennovate.org/programs/moganshan-2010/ We’ve also just returned from Kunshan, where we reached out to young students who were invited for a day of environmental education to the Double Tree Hotel, an international branch of Hilton that has partnered with several environmental groups on its path towards sustainability. And as you read this, part of our team is back in Guangzhou empowering more FedEx employees, helping their company work towards sustainability, and training their volunteers to bring GECKO to the local schools. Stay tuned for more updates and don’t forget to donate today - we really appreciate your support! Stay green, Schuyler

Moganshan students create their own recycling bins

A beautiful, snowy sea of bamboo atop Mogan Mtn

Links:

An update from GECKO

Schuyler Olsson — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 06:39:06 GMT

YCIS students visit our green office

Dear GECKO Supporters, It’s been three weeks since the last time I wrote, so I would like to give you a brief update about what we’ve been up to and what we plan for the future! But, before I lose your attention, I’d like to make two quick announcements: 1. Mark your calendars – March 16th will be Global Giving’s Bonus Matching Day! This means that all donations made on this day will be matched 30% up to $1,000/person – adding some juice to your contribution. I’ll send you another message on that day – we have some big plans for this year and we’ll need your help! 2. We’ve launched a new-and-improved website for www.greennovate.NET (greennovate.ORG is just for GECKO, only a part of what we do at Greennovate). I invite you all to check it out! As for GECKO, it’s been an exciting start to the new year: In mid-February, we had students from Yew Chung International School visit our office to learn about Greennovate and they invited us back to their school to present our GECKO program to their older students. Then, last Saturday, we were excited to have members of the Shanghai volunteer network BEAN visit our office to receive training on the GECKO program! As part of their commitment to community service in Shanghai, BEAN will be visiting a series of migrant schools for environmental education days, starting on March 20th. We have worked with BEAN before, and the time has come to take our partnership to the next level. This is part of our goal to grow our existing partnerships and find new ones, creating self-sufficient teams outside of Greennovate who can bring GECKO to local schools by themselves to help us expand our program. That’s it for now – soon we’ll be heading to Kunshan and Moganshan, as well as to Guangzhou to engage FedEx employee volunteers in a sustainability training and community outreach program. Stay tuned at www.greennovate.org! Thanks for your support, Schuyler

BEAN volunteer practices teaching GECKO

Links:

Attachments:

View our Greennovate 2009 Annual Report (PDF)

GECKO to return to Moganshan in March!

Schuyler Olsson — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 07:59:29 GMT

Beautiful Mogan Mountain - the site of our next trip!

Dear GECKO Supporters,

It's been a month since our last update. Since then, we've been working hard on planning on our activities for this year, including hiring a new member of our team to coordinate our partnership with AIESEC!

I'm writing to you today because we’re excited to be gathering teams of Chinese university student volunteers to bring the GECKO program to schools in Moganshan, a beautiful mountain 3 hours outside Shanghai. The program will kick off with a “Big Litter Pick” on March 8th!

In collaboration with the eco-resort naked Retreats as part of their naked Green Initiative Month, we will be training 4 different teams of 4 student trainers to run cross-cultural environmental workshops with participating local schools (Moganshan and Paitou Middle Schools), as well as international schools in the Moganshan area.

This is the second installment of our partnership with naked Retreats. It will run throughout March and April with the goal of reaching out to over 1,000 high school students.

Thank you so much for your support - and expect an update in March on how the program goes!

We'll soon be publishing our official Greennovate 2009 Annual Report, but in the mean feel free to check out our website at http://www.greennovate.org to see what we've accomplished in 2009.

Feel free to leave comments below!

Thanks,

Schuyler Olsson

Excited students from our first Moganshan visit, July 2009

Students pose while making their personal enviro commitments

Links:

Success! (and an update from the field)

Schuyler Olsson — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 07:25:28 GMT

AIESEC Volunteers Present at Shangde Experimental School

Dear GECKO Supporters,

After a short break, Greennovate is back in action for 2010! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and got to spend time with friends and family.

We start off the new year with great news; with the generous help of supporters like you, we successfully surpassed our donation goal, having so far raised nearly $4,500 from 69 donors! This means we have become a permanent member of Global Giving, which will help us gain recognition from a greater number of contributors in and outside China.

Furthermore, we are pleased to announce that our partnership with AIESEC, the world’s largest international student organization, has grown. AIESEC volunteers Christina Liu, Michael Zhou, and Fini Arifin used our GECKO training and materials in December to present at two Shanghai high schools – Hua Shi Da No 2 High School and the bilingual Shangde Experimental School. The New Zealand student volunteers, who work together with us in order to extend AIESEC’s “Green Power Now” Program, have reached out to over 150 students so far.

To learn more about the Greennovate/AIESEC Partnership, visit http://www.greennovate.org/programs/greennovateaiesec-partnership/.

On behalf of the Greennovate team, I would like to thank you for your support, and wish you a great start to a new (greener) year!

Links:

Teaching Green with James Lee

Schuyler Olsson — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 02:38:37 GMT

James, a loyal Greennovate volunteer, poses for City Weekend

Hi everyone!

I was pleasantly surprised when I woke up this morning - our number of donors had jumped from 41 to 51 overnight! We have now reached our goal of 50 donors, but still need to hit 4000USD!

To those of you who have donated, thank you so much for your support; you will all receive a formal thank you letter soon.

I'm writing to you today because I am pleased to announce that City Weekend, a very popular magazine and online expat community in Shanghai, has written a great article about James Lee, one of our most loyal volunteer trainers.

James: "After presenting [to students in Qinghai], we were all so proud of ourselves, because besides giving knowledge, we got across the message that their voices were worth listening to."

To read more, please visit：

http://www.cityweekend.com.cn/shanghai/articles/blogs-shanghai/expat-affairs/teaching-green-with-james-lee/

Happy Holidays and thanks again,

Schuyler

Links:

A Day of Environmental Education at Zhen Hua Primary School

Schuyler Olsson — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 06:26:47 GMT

GECKO Team Members Introduce Waste Separation

On Saturday, December 5th, GECKO teamed up with members of the Shanghai volunteer group BEAN for a day of environmental education at Zhen Hua Primary School in Pudong, Shanghai, reaching a total of 80 students.

The workshop involved engaging activities including presentations made by one of your university student volunteers, videos on environmental issues, learning about waste separation, and decorating recycling bins to be placed throughout the school's classrooms.

To see more pictures from the day's events, please visit http://www.greennovate.org/programs/zhen-hua-primary-school-photos/

This is the second time GECKO has teamed up with BEAN to host an environmental education day in Shanghai. We are always looking for new partnerships in order to increase our number of trainers and develop core groups of volunteers.

Next year, we will be training BEAN volunteers to deliver our GECKO program themselves, helping us reach our goal of 50,000 students by the end of 2010.

We encourage you to leave your thoughts and feedback on our events!

Thank you for your support!

GECKO Volunteer Explains What we Can Learn from Easter Island

Zhen Hua Primary School Students, Shanghai

Links:

Yangshuo Program 2009

Schuyler Olsson — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 09:10:10 GMT

GECKO Volunteers Present on Environmental Footprint

On November 24th through 27th, our GECKO team, together with our core group of volunteers and interns, spent the week with over 200 students at Yangshuo Vocational Technical School, bringing environmental awareness education through engaging hands-on activities and presentations which introduced the challenges of our environment and sustainability, presented solutions to the problem of waste and the personal steps we can take to reduce our environmental footprint, and looked ahead to how to work towards a sustainable future.

A note received from a Yangshuo student: "I’m so happy to learn all the environmental knowledge brought by our international friends and to see their endeavor in raising people’s awareness to get together and protect the one and only world that we have. It was just like watching a movie seeing them and I got the inspiration from them that environmental protection is a cause that the every one of us should be involved in."

For more pictures and information, please visit http://www.greennovate.org/programs/yangshuo-2009/.

Thank you!

Greennovate Team Presents Poster to School Principal

Tree planting ceremony to end the program

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