Edson Dongo – Alumnus

I started this club from the background that in Zimbabwe, the majority of our schools are not teaching climate education regardless of the fact that the country is already experiencing the global catastrophe. Over 68% of our Zimbabwean population is in rural areas and the majority of this population is below the age of sixteen, meaning that they are of school going age.  This prompted me to start this club hoping that it will spread like veld fire to all the parts of the marginalised areas of Zimbabwe. Although the curriculum was reviewed to include some of the climate change issues, it lacks an in-depth and practical approach to climate change issues. The teachers are not equipped with climate change information to make significance change to learners.

Although it seems obvious that climate education is paramount based on what is on the ground, climate change is not mentioned or properly addressed in schools. It is very clear that the majority of learners do not really understand the urgency of the climate crisis and those that know may not be equipped enough to act on the understanding. As a teacher experiencing this reality, I was motivated to look for resources and ideas to learn about the climate crisis and work in climate advocacy. The reason behind my efforts being to empower learners to make a difference in their community.

I also want to be part of a winning global team fighting carbon emissions to zero, to get this we have to produce a generation of leaders who make it a reality and it starts with climate change education in schools. Spear-heading the green learning agenda is my priority as an educator, leading a new way of educating and engaging learners, youths and adults in climate solutions. This is done through unleashing the creativity in learners to develop and implement climate action projects in their homes, schools and communities.

The other reason I also started this club is that in the eye of my mind I visualise learners as people who have immense potential to learn new things and also act as agents of change using skills acquired at school which I strive to impart to them. Learners can also act as gap fillers utilising information acquired at school, generally the inherent passion in the learners for gaining new knowledge can be pricked for the betterment of their community in particular and for the nation at large.

Some of the projects we have done as a club include but not limited to Reusing/ recycling of empty plastic bottles, clean-up campaigns in surrounding communities, seed bank, conservation agriculture and food preservation amongst others.

The impact I have made due to climate education are listed below:

●Attended Train the Trainer Renewable energy resources for teaching and learning in Abu Dhabi

●Earth Warriors global climate change training

●British council Youth in climate workshops

●UNESCO handbook Mwenje case study

●Teacher Cop presentation

●op27 Presentation to IPCC and Meri Foundation

●AIME and Learning Planet YouTube presentation

●12 at 12 for the Planet presentation

●Fellows’ Voice presentation

●Teach for All Break through presentation

●Earth day Video TfALL

●Pennsylvania University Project Based learning for Climate JUSTICE

●Ateneo De Manila University, Climate Risk research presentation.

●Climate and Youth Summit 2022

●Pioneered the introduction of climate education modules to Teach forALL Partners

●Assisted Teach for Kenyan Fellows in module writing

●AUN Ecological Education and Culture, teaching biodiversity

●Subject To climate Workshop for TfALL Climate Education Community