The Ministry of Social Security, National Solidarity and Environment and Sustainable Development has launched a toolkit on good environmental practices for lower secondary students.
The toolkit is aimed at encouraging students to bring about changes in their attitudes towards nature and raising awareness on the need to adopt a sustainable lifestyle for the preservation of the environment. It covers topics such as tree planting, solid waste management, climate change, air pollution, water stress, energy use, biodiversity and sustainable lifestyle.
Through the toolkit, students learn about environmental challenges and simple actions that they can adopt at school, at home and in their locality to safeguard our environment. The Information and Education (IE) Division of the Ministry of Social Security, National Solidarity and Environment and Sustainable Development is involved in raising awareness of the student community through talks, meetings and display of short clips on the topics covered in the toolkit. In 2017, some 15 schools were sensitised and for this year some 30 schools are being targeted.
The Minister of Social Security, National Solidarity and Environment and Sustainable Development, Mr Etienne Sinatambou, believes that sustainable development education is a priority and concerns us all.
‘Sustainable development education is action-oriented. Acquiring useful knowledge for the future of the students requires genuine commitment to making small changes in their daily lives. Through their reflection on their own actions, students can gain useful knowledge since they discover the link between information and real experience. But action is not only necessary for the acquisition of knowledge. It is also essential in a society that changes as quickly as ours’, he says.
In addition to conducting awareness campaign in schools the IE Division, whose main mandate is to sensitise citizens on environmental issues, also aims other target groups such as women, senior citizens, youth community, NGOs and private institutions.
Source: Government of Mauritius