As part of the COP 26 follow up, the British High Commission to Malta sponsored five EkoSkola mini sessions that explored Climate Change from various dimensions.
Several students from a total of 103 Maltese and Gozitan
schools attended the online sessions. The recommendations of the EkoSkola students were collated in a publication and presented to the British High Commissioner to Malta, Her Excellency Katherine Ward LVO OBE in a ceremony held at St. Ignatius College, Handaq Middle School.
Several other Young Reporters for the Environment were also rewarded for their distinguished entries on the same topic of Climate Change.
Transport, Life on Land, Life below Water, Energy and Water, Production and Consumption Patterns were amongst the themes discussed throughout the mini summits. During these online summits, students discussed with local experts the various perspectives of the issues explored and proposed practical actions that could be
implemented to address the issues.
The proposals were collated in a special publication together with several other inputs from younger children in the form of drawings and craft projects. A soft copy of the publication can be viewed here: https://ekoskola.org.mt/resource/we-care-about-our-present-and-our-future/ .
As is customary after each summit, EkoSkola students will be presenting their recommendations to the Members of
Parliament in the yearly EkoSkola Parliament sitting later this year.
An interesting spin off from this series of mini summits, was an interest in learning what children from other countries are doing regarding climate change. Through the international Eco-Schools network, Nature Trust – FEE Malta brought together during an online meeting two schools from the UK and two from Malta to share their respective experiences of climate actions. The very positive vibes generated by this meeting have already resulted in the twinning of two schools and plans are already being discussed to organise similar meetings in the future.
Furthermore a total of 32 entries were submitted for the YRE competition, with students reporting on issues
related to different aspects of Climate Change. There were a total of 4 winners from several categories including the best article, best photo, best video and best entry overall.
Nature Trust – FEE Malta has over the years been a trail blazer in the field of children empowerment and has
inspired other organizations by its mission and initiatives to give children space. Nature Trust – FEE Malta remains committed towards providing further opportunities for children because it (like them) believes that they have every right to be involved in shaping the decisions that will affect their quality of life.
The Eco-Schools programme was launched in 1994 by the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE) and now mobilises over 20 million students from 72 different countries. It is locally known as EkoSkola and is locally run by Nature Trust – FEE Malta as FEE representatives. The EkoSkola programme includes a total of 126 participating schools from Malta and Gozo, with more than 49,000 students as active participants. It was first introduced locally in 2002. The initial pilot project was started with the participation of six schools. Since then the number of schools kept increasing, and 83 have now managed to
acquire the Green Flag – an internationally renowned eco-label for a school’s serious commitment to environmental
improvement.
