Empower 50,000 Young Green Ambassadors in China

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 

Links:

• Detailed report of our trip to Yangshuo
• Website of Wheel2Wheel project

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