World Environment Day celebration every year in June 5 has become a tradition moreover, a culture for me and my organization. When whole the world was celebrating WED,2014 with the theme ?Raise your voice, not the sea level we also gave our efforts to make our voices heard.

 This year we had another national theme to celebrate-?Protect the Mountains, Conserve the Environment?. Briefly talking about this theme, I would like to state the fact that Nepal is a landlocked country with no oceans and seas. However, the issue of rising sea level affecting the small island countries is a direct concern for Nepal as the mountains and glaciers are melting, ultimately mixing in the seas and creating a rise. So, the voice we raised on environment day were both for the mountains and the seas and as I have always said, the voices were for the attitude development of young minds towards conservation.

WED, 2014 Celebration A Report

1. World Cafe with students, June 5 , 2014

World cafe:  If anyone isn?t familiar with the term world cafe, let me explain. This term was strange to me as well before I got to participate in one. Well, a world cafe is a sort of workshop or group discussion. Here, participants are divided into teams about 4-7 or even more according to   the number. Each team has a host and its members. Each team is provided with a topic related to the workshop. Teams prepare presentations on the given topics,  focusing mostly on problems and solutions. After that, members of each team go and visit host s of other teams. The members learn on the discussed topic and give suggestions. Finally, hosts present final presentation.

On the behalf of Nepal Tunza Youth Environment Network (NTYEN), I organized a world cafe on the theme of the world environment day. Altogether 48 students of Pragati Siksha Sadan Boarding school  of Mangalpur, Chitwan participated in the workshop. Altogether 7 teams were given various topics like mountain protection, endangered species, sea and the rise, future solutions to sea rise, raising voices when and where etc. I would like to share some of the highlights of the discussion as,

• Mountain protection needs protection of its elements like waterfalls, agriculture, forests, NTFPs (Non Timber Forest Products) and its people.
• Raising voice should be they first step of identifying solutions to problems.
• Environmental offences like polluting water sources that ultimately mix to the seas should be prohibited.
• What happens in mountains affect the seas and what happens in sea to mountains.  Everyone is connected.

1. 

   presentation

   

   Group work

   

   Group photo

   The highlights were shown by local media channels and hopefully more voices will be heard even after the environment day.

2. Sanitation Program, June 5, 2014

On the behalf of Youth Eco Network, I along with my friends organized sanitation program in Rampur, Chitwan premises. Nepal so much needs Clean Up campaigns as the waste disposal is getting harder with the throw-away attitude of people making it lethal. And what better  message can be given to the residential people than by direct cleaning. We have been doing clean up programs a lot in the past as well.  Something new we added this time was direct interaction with people and showing the wastes infront of their houses. We even mentioned how the garbages like plastic bags are adding carbon and ultimately to the global emergency. We even emptied the dustbins and carried wastes to the local landfills.

3. Interschool Essay Writing Competition, June 9, 2014

 Another program we had on the occasion of world environment day/week was Interschool Essay Writing Competition conducted on June, 2014 on the topic,?Raise your voice, not the sea level?. Altogether 23 students from different schools of Chitwan participated in the competition. The announcement of the winners is yet to take place. I?ll soon share it with you all.

The above all objective of the programs was to sow the seed of awareness and positive attitude in the youths so that voices can be raised. I do hope voices for environmental protection including the seas and the mountains will be so loud that it will be impossible to remain unheard and undone.