By Concepcion Pablo Lacan and Julia Pretsfelder | Social Programs Development Team
We are encouraging our students to care of the environment. Caring for our surroundings is everyone’s responsibility. It’s particularly important that our community emphasizes respecting the natural world in order to protect our lake and lead healthy lives. We taught our students the theme of the 3Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle because we want them to be responsible for caring for the environment. Environmentally conscious behavior will help reduce contamination that is affecting our community.
After finishing the workshop, our students made pen holders using recycled papers, cardboard, and kitchen napkins. Fortunately, our students had some experience recycling in their school environments as well. Misael and Oliver mentioned that their school was making a fountain out of recycled glass bottles, and Dolores said she made a flower pot for her school garden through reusing a plastic water bottle.
We encouraged each student to come up with an idea of how they could develop the 3R values in their homes and community. Hadasa mentioned that she could make a piggy bank using recycled materials. Concepción, who is studying to become a teacher, said that she could reuse a cardboard box to collect recycled materials that she could use in workshops with her own students.
Together, we are learning how to take care of our environment, which is incredibly important as Guatemala is one of 10 countries most likely to be affected by climate change and extreme weather events. Some of the effects of climate change are already apparent in Guatemala as coffee growing regions are having poorer harvests, which has caused migration from regions such as Huehuetenango. Changing the outcomes of environmental crisis must start on a local level, and we believe individual students can make small steps to advocate for environmentalism in our community. Each student is doing their best to impact each other’s lives as family members and neighbors.
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