søndag 30. april 2017

Winner of YRE competition in Ghana 2017

The winning report was submitted by: Aminata Fall, Flavian Opoku, Lisa Gyamera, Persis Doosogla, Stephanie Esinam Nyidu from Akosombo International School, after their eco-school camp held in March 2017.  Photo by: Mrs Margret Ayernor
YRE stands for Young Reporters for the Environment, and is a program run by FEE who also runs Eco-Schools. Young Reporters, aged between 11 and 21, investigate environmental issues and problems and propose solutions through investigative reporting, photographic or video journalism. Eco-Schools Ghana runs YRE in Ghana, and will this year for the first time enter the international competition with our national winners from Akosombo International School. You can read more about the competition here. You can read their report that will be submitted for the international YRE competition below:

torsdag 6. oktober 2016

Start up - Saving The Lagoone at Old Ningo

On October 12th our Eco-School team will be joining the Old Ningo SHS´s start up workshop on how the Eco-School methodology can be used to to restore the Dzange  Lagoon.
 

Alongside 37% of the global population the people of Old Ningo live in a coastal community where the oceans as well as the marine and coastal resources play a crusial role in both human well-being and social and economical development. However, those resources are extremely vulnerable to environmental degradation, overfishing, climate change and pollution.

onsdag 20. juli 2016

Happy Anniversary!!

Today,  July 18th, marks the two year anniversary of Eco-Schools not only in Ghana, but the whole of sub Saharan West-Africa. In 2014 Akosombo International School became the first school in West Africa to hoist the green flag. Two years later 4 schools in Akosombo has met the criterias to get the Green flag award, 13 schools have signed up for the program and many mors has indicated that they want to join. We have taken taken a short look back at the road that has taken us here:


Eco-Schools Ghana is the direct results of the collaboration between Akosombo International School and Byåsen school in Trondheim, one of the first Eco-Schools in Norway. They inspired us to bring the Eco-School program to West Africa. 





torsdag 23. juni 2016

Green Flag Ceremony at Rev. Monningar Presbytarian School


Monningar Presby school in Akosombo signed up for Eco-Schools at the very first Green Flag ceremony in West Africa in July 2014. Two years later with hard work they had met the criterions for reciving the Green Flag award. The school has introduced a waste separation system for the school and established early an Eco-School Club that has worked on a number of activities. The paper waste is used for art work, and the food waste goes to composting that has become manour for their newly established School Garden. Plastic waste is beeing sold to a waste collector. We salute them on their excelent work!


onsdag 8. juni 2016

Happy World Oceans Day!

Today, on the 8th. Of June we celebrate The  World Oceans Day. A few weeks back the delegation from Akosombo that visited Trondheim attended a Bach-Cleaning event. Not only did they collect The waste, they also learned about the huge threat it causes for the marine life across our common seas. For a period now Eco-Schools Ghana has tried to focus on, and educate about the impact plastic waste in the Oceans has on marine life.
 A lot of people do not realize how much waste, plastic in particular, that is in and around our seas. Plastic Pollution is one of the biggest threats to our oceans today. One of the reasons it posts such a huge threat is that it is extremely difficult to get rid of. Did you for instance know that it takes 450 years for a plastic bottle to decompose? When plastic degrades it is just torn into smaller pieces until you no longer can see it. This is what we call Microplastic and that is what the main focus was directed to on The Beach-Cleaning Day. Marine life often confuse microplastic with food and it is not uncommon for fish and birds to die from hunger caused by their stomach being filled with so much plastic that they no longer can fit food in there. Turtles often confuse plastic bags with jellyfish which in many cases can choke them to death. Not only is the plastic it self harmful but the animals also eat all The chemicals the plastic has soaked up in the ocean. Larger plastic objects can cause animals to get trapped and many drown as a result of not being able to reach the surface for air.
To day is the #WorldOceansDay. #EcoSchoolsGhana work to prevent waste interfering with marin life. Help us secure the home of our #greenturtle and other endangered specie.
(Photo: Aftenposten.no)
Not only does this affect marine life but it also affects us. It affects you. If The fish we eat has consumed waste and chemicals so will we. It affects the whole food chain.
Although this years theme for the World Ocean Day is "Healthy Ocean, Healthy Planet" and the main focus is Plastic Pollution this is not the only thing threatening the biological diversity in and around our oceans. Climate change and Global Warming also affects life in the ocean.
We at Eco-School Ghana will continue to take action and do what we can to keep our Oceans clean and healthy, and also help sustain the amazing biological diversity in them- and we hope you will do the same!
Happy World Oceans Day!!

lørdag 4. juni 2016

Eco-Schools Ghana & Sustainable Development

The opening line in the last one of UNs 2016, 17 sustainable development goals goes as followed: “A successful sustainable development agenda requires partnerships between governments, the private sector and civil society. “

Eco-Schools Ghana is one civic organization working towards reaching the SDGs. Although the main focus of the program is Environmental protection it goes hand in hand with poverty reduction and a number of the other goals as the 17 SDGs concerns everything from Energy and Economic Growth to climate change and oceans. Success in one of these areas implements improvements for the others. The eco-School program is under the umbrella organization of Foundation of Environmental Education (FEE) who already operates within a context defined by the SDGs. Education is one of the strategies to achieve the goals and FEE has multiple programs based on Education for Sustainable Development who all show a strong link with the educational Goal (SDG 4) and the goal on global partnership (SDG 17) among others.

Sustainable Development is often defined as "Development that meets the need of The present without compromising The ability of future generations to meet their own needs" 
According to the Brundtland Report Sustainable Development cannot be achieved without poverty reduction and Environmental Protection. Goal number 1 is to end poverty in all its forms everywhere. Poverty eradication is recognized as the greatest global challenge facing the world today. Sustainable development requires meeting the basic needs of all and that a world in which poverty is endemic always will be prone to ecological and other catastrophes. Climate change has long been known to affect the poorest and most vulnerable people the most. It states that Environment and Development are not separate challenges, that they are inexorably linked and that Development cannot subsist upon a deteriorating environmental resource base. According to The UN and SDG number 13 concerning Climate Change, Climate Change is now affecting every Country on every continent. It is a global challenge that does not respect national borders. People are experiencing the significant impacts of Climate change every day, which includes changing weather patterns, rising sea levels and more extreme weather events. Fortunately there are now affordable, scalable solutions available to countries to leapfrog towards cleaner, more resilient economies, but also there are super easy things every person can adopt into their daily routines that if we get enough people onboard will make a difference. This is what Eco-School Ghana is working towards. Trough education and information, we wish to help people realize that they all can contribute by making small adjustments in their daily routines. 



One of the themes of the Eco-School program is Global Citizenship and for over a decade a collaboration between Byåsen School in Norway, and Akosombo International School in Ghana has been ongoing. This small scale project has consisted of letter exchanges between students; sharing and learning about each others culture and improving communication skills. It was an interesting process for many of the student realizing that although the schools are far apart and the people may look different and sound different than themselves that they are much more alike than they first may have assumed. 
Also, they quickly found themselves talking about environmental similarities and differences, and realized that both places struggled with the same issues concerning climate change, pollution, waste management, and that what they do when it comes to both environmental protection and Environmental pollution has consequences for the other party as well as themselves. 
Today the collaboration has developed from a School to School collaboration into a city to city collaboration which concerns not only strengthening cultural ties, but also on a civic level working towards reaching the SDGs. Seeing as the collaboration has been between Ghana and Norway we were exited to learn that The Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama and Norwegian Prime minister Erna Solberg will Co-chair The group of SDGs Advocates. The UN emphasized the importance of engaging all relevant stakeholders in putting the new agenda into practice. And we hope that the Eco-School collaboration shows that there are already people on the right path, willing and wanting the do the work required in different parts of the world, and that with us all working together, reaching the goals should be feasible.

torsdag 2. juni 2016

A Visit to the Rcycling Plant at Hegstadmoen

12/05/2016
Today the Ghanaian delegation from Akosombo to Trondheim paid a visit to the Hegstadmoen Waste Recycling Plant. They were given a tour of the facility by the Operations Manager as well as the Managing Director. The Ghanaian delegation was the various fractions of the plant and taken through the whole process of waste management with respect to the city of Trondheim. The company in charge of the recycling plant also offered to provide assistance to the city of Akososmbo in order to umprove the waste management system there. The Mayor of Akosombo was very grateful for this. It was a very educational tour and there were a lot of lessons learnt which the Ghanaian delegation intends to take back home.

The tour begins.