The Academy in Biriya Majhola, India took place on July 28, 2019. 82 children from 9 different schools were keenly waiting for the academy to start. The event was free-of-charge for all the attending children, aged from 09 to 13.

The Academy began with some welcoming words of Rohit. Then the full attention of the children turned to the presentation “Now we children save the world!” given by Dharmendra Kapri. Complex topics, such as sources of CO2, global warming, photosynthesis, the climate crisis and global justice were presented in a suitable way for children. After the presentation, the participants had the chance to clarify their questions.

For the following part the children were divided into small groups, to learn about global distribution and global justice in the so called “World Game”. The children distributed tokens, sweets and balloons among the continents displayed on the world map. The three playing figures symbolize the world’s population, wealth and CO2 emissions respectively. After seeing the real life distribution of these resources, all children agreed that the distribution was unjust. Although only 0.5 percent of the population live in North America, they possess almost 30 percent of the world income and emit 20 percent of CO2 emissions. Therefore the children redistributed the sweets and balloons, in order to visualize how a fair distribution would look like and to keep in mind that everyone should have equal rights.

In order to take action and speak up for their future, the children need good presentation and speaking skills. Therefore the participants prepared and presented short passages from the opening presentation they had listened to in the morning. They gave each other feedback on how to improve their presentations in the future.

After that I also conducted a session on Tunza Eco-generation and promoted our TEG platform among the students and gave them TEG leaflets, pencils, post-its etc. and reminded them to look at the TEG website to see the wonderful work carried by all of us. 

After a short lunch break, the children had the opportunity to take action for their future right away: They went to plant trees! In addition, they received information on how to plant trees, when to plant them and how to take care of them. In return, the participants were able to show off their newly gained knowledge about the role and importance of trees. In total they planted 17 trees. The children finished the planting event with a magnificent Stop Talking, Start Planting battle cry!

Back to academy a small group practiced the final presentation for the evening event and the rest of the children started the World Café. During this activity the participants were collecting ideas to the questions how to get the attention of the media, how to motivate adults, friends and classmates and how to organize a planting party. Afterwards the children gathered in their school groups and planned their own project, which they want to implement after the Academy.

After a long, productive, and enjoyable day, all 82 participants received their certificates from Mr. Narendra Singh Rautela and Mr. Pramod Rana, which recognized them as a Climate Justice Ambassador.  An interesting day had come to an end. Apart from the experience and newly found knowledge, all new Ambassadors took with them a copy of the book Tree-by-Tree, and of course the Plant-for-the-Planet T-shirt they collected at the start of the day.