Youth for Development Prize 2005
Environment
Project name:
Creativity in Environment Culture
Country: Bahrain
Team members (Young leaders)
- HANAN Rajab
- ZAINAB Faisal
- MARIAM Rasool
- ZAINAB Alhawra
- FATMA Shawqi
General description:
A project operated by a voluntary team of youngsters aiming to address environment issues and threats in a creative and inspiring approach. The team is supervised by the working group of the “Environment Citizenship Program” under the umbrella of Bahrain Women Society
Summary of accomplishments
A main characteristic of a developed society is the existence of effective environmental regulations equipped with proper enforcement mechanism. Such societies not only implement regulations, but supports and demand them due to their high environmental sense and awareness. This culture is out of balance in developing countries where regulations are either imported from developed countries and the low capabilities of implementation or monitoring makes them unenforceable or weakened due the immaturity of compliance culture in the community.
These facts alerted the developing countries environmental NGOs to focus on the behavioural changes that empower individuals to play their role in the environment sustainability.
Bahrain is one such country and “Bahrain Women Society” (BWS) is one of its NGOs struggling to make a change in the environment aspect. The society under its Environment Citizenship Program “ECP” took the initiative to adopt and spread the Earth Charter concepts after attending IUCN World Conference in Jordan, October 2000 during which an Earth Charter luncheon was held. ECP then started a national Champaign to spread the Earth Charter principles in the Kingdom.
One article of Earth Charter’s states: “Provide all, especially children and youth, with educational opportunities that empower them to contribute actively to sustainable development.” This lead BWS to empower one of its young lady members and provided her a challenge and an opportunity to participate effectively in community environmental awareness. “Hanan” - 23 years old - was also encouraged by ECP to contribute in UNEPs TUNZA Youth Strategy that focuses on capacity building of young people. Then, ECP highly supported her to form a team of young volunteers fostering environmentally sustainable development practices. The team consists of 5 youngsters of age 18 to 24, and were educated with Earth Charter principles through the ECP workshop designed for that purpose.
The team came up with “Creativity in Environmental Culture”, an innovative program using an environmental mascot as an inventive approach to tackle environmental issues. They chose a threatened species in decline in the Kingdom of Bahrain due to rude hunting or habitat destruction, known locally as “dubb” (Spiny tail lizard). This mascot was named “Waness” meaning joyfulness and eventually the team was called “Wanees Team”. Wanees team is working under the ECP, but they tackle their projects and action plans independently. Consequently two projects emerged for this year, first is writing children stories series in a simple practical manner tackling their daily behaviour towards their environment. The second project is creating a website with Wanees front page with links to different activities. Both projects are aiming to promote environmental awareness for kids and youngsters.
Wanees team recently launched their first story were “Wanees” the Dubb, was introduced with his ambitious dream of saving the earth. Next story is in the pipeline and will focus on Wanees adventures.
Wanees Website has also been designed and uploaded providing environmental information, useful links are established gradually according to planned time schedule.
In conclusion, Wanees team is a model of today’s youngster’s efforts for a sustainable future tomorrow.
Description of contributions
- Creation of an environmental mascot that inspired which inspired the kids attention to the importance of biodiversity conservation.
- An Introductory brochure of the program demonstrating the program objectives, targeted group & expectation of the program played a role in attracting the community to the program.
- First story of the environmental series was released and found seizing the attention of kids and awakening their thoughts to the proper behavior towards the environment.
- A creative website is designed and uploaded with useful links concerning environmental issues that attracted kids’ attention and implanted in them the care for the nature and its components.
The Youth for Development Prize is awarded every year to teams of young people who have run innovative projects in the framework of the Millennium Development Goals, in the fields of environment, development or peace.
The Youth for Development Prize is granted by a World Jury formed of world renewed experts in the fields of environment, development and peace.
Around the world many groups of young people are developing projects within their communities to improve the conditions of life, protect the environment, challenges prejudices and make the world a better place. Our aim is to collect information on these projects and to encourage more young people to develop new projects related to the Millennium Development Goals and to improve their quality and their impact.
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