Nature solutions for Community development

Your solidarity is shining bright in the darkest times

As you know, this month, our environmental education program was selected among many participants to be part of the 2020 Climate Action Campaign.  Thanks to your support, we received donations of 126 people and raised $4200 and received a matching fund of $2100.  For a total of $6300, that will be used in educational materials: pencils, watercolors, and books to use at home for kids that we serve. We will also give each kid a tree to plant as a celebration of Earth Day. 

We made it to the 9th position of 127 projects. 

Our challenge now is to maintain educational engagement with the children in the rural communities surrounding Drake Bay. Before COVID-19, our Children and Youth group of 50 boys and girls from four different towns, met weekly to work together with us on environmental issues.  

To that end, we have been working with them remotely for the past four weeks through an initiative we call "Environmental Challenges." We put together videos and propose activities regarding the environment that must be completed each week. They use the modest data plans of their parents' phones to download our videos and experiments, and then share their achievements with us. With schools being closed, as well as beaches and parks, the content and activities we send them each week are their only educational activity. Take a look at our Earth Day Challenge. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2fAQ43ioso

The foundation will continue to empower youth to help mitigate the impact of climate change, reduce vulnerability on communities, and promote resilience to climate change. We are also supporting sustainable economic activity that returns some equilibrium to the existential equation. 

The impact of climate change —floods, droughts, raging fires, and superstorms, will not pause and wait for us to come out of this pandemic. We must preserve, protect, and participate with as much conviction, passion, and innovation as possible.

We are not in a city; we are in the remote Osa Peninsula, and the available technology is just a cell phone through which they can connect to the internet from time to time. In these rural communities, the Costa Rican government has not yet managed to implement homeschooling. These kids can see the environmental challenges facing Costa Rica and the rest of the world. We want to continue to motivate them by keeping them engaged from the safety of their homes, so they remain aware, active, and committed.

All the activities involve play, and experimentation and content are made available by WhatsApp. Parents have been involved in their children's efforts by helping them research and helping them record the videos. I love the fact that kids and parents are now experimenting with technology, given them the tools that will be useful in the future. 

We are excited to see how these activities bring parents and children together to work and learn. A mother told us how she had taken her son to visit the mangrove swamp to characterize this ecosystem better and to help him prepare for his environmental challenge.

Thank you for making it all happen!  Subscribe on our youtube channel or like us on Facebook to see more of our educational videos, my kids are having a blast with them. 

Thank you again, 

Alejandra 

Links:

• Children's Earth Day Challenge