Vision & Creation

Realisation of a Vision and Creation of a Sustainable Model

How it all started?

During the year 2015, when we were taking the initial steps towards our Goal of developing a Sustainable Model for our Conservation Education Programmes and Activities in North East India (In the States of Assam, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh), we were introduced to a fantastic resource which was developed by Audubon (in alliance with Toyota), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Environmental Education and Training Partnership (EETAP), TogetherGreen, North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE), and many other organisations, which was designed to better engage people to achieve more Sustainable Conservation results.

A meeting with Judy Braus, who was the Senior Vice President - Education and Centers, National Audubon Society, during our visit to the US, during the year 2015, had laid down the First Foundation for our Conservation Education models, which were also inspired by the IUCN Mandates (when we became a member of the Union) and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. An Educational Trip to the US to attend the Student Climate Corps. & Congress, jointly organised by the US Fish & Wildlife Service and the Green Schools Alliance, equipped us with Directions and Support to further design the pathways, that enabled us to realize a vision - Creating a Sustainable Model by creating the means that would in turn give us opportunities to create a platform where we can have collaborative synergy between Urban & Rural Educational Institutions. Organisational Memberships of reputed organisations like IUCN-CEC, IUCN #NatureForAll had equipped us more to design our programmes, activities and training modules, as we started following their mandates.

In coherence with the above learning, we immediately defined our Target - The Student Communities of the Urban & Rural Schools, where, the former sector, which thrived away from Nature and Natural Spaces, has been functioning and working isolated for years, and the latter, which was totally deprived of quality Environment Education, even if being close to Forests and Natural Bio-Geographical areas. Achieving 'conservation education results' with Educational Institutions, both in the Urban and Rural Sectors, isn't easy in India. The problems have become increasingly complex and interrelated, over the past years, as two Sectors have hardly met, or have had any prominent interactions. It's impossible to address most Conservation Education problems with this one-discipline, isolated approach and solutions. We need active input and engagement from a diverse and informed constituency - the question: How can we observe and benefit from the two sectors?

Global warming, habitat loss, deforestation, water quality, air pollution, green consumer issues, and almost every other issue extend beyond borders and the solutions require integrated and sophisticated thinking, involving the Student Community, which is most essential in the Indian Scenario.

We designed the early blueprints of the programme through these basic steps -

As we leant from the Toolkit - Conservation Education demands engagement of People or in other words, Conservation can't happen without people

Crafting our Vision

We conceptualized our Action Plans and designed them as per the following inferences:

1. The Student Community of the Urban Space is more inclined towards Environmental Education and awareness from Books, ICT Tools and other Publications, with engagement in activities which are limited to only the celebration of important Calendar Dates like - Earth Day, Would Environment Day or the International Day of Biological Diversity, where the activities have all become stereotypes, without any follow up, enrichment of Climate, Environmental knowledge and awareness of Biodiversity.

Access

Define planning purpose and project team
Define scope, vision, targets
Identify critical threat
Analyse the conservation situation

Plan

Develop goals, strategies, assumptions, and objectives
Develop monitoring plan
Develop operational plan

Implement

Develop work plan and timeline
Develop and refine budget
Implement plans

Analyse & Adapt

Prepare data for analysis
Analyze results
Adapt strategic plan

Identify documentation for sharing
Connecting with collaboration partners
Weaving communities to share information

*Reference to above images: The Students from some Rural (Govt.) Schools are more aware of Plastic Pollution than their peers from City Schools. It is fascinating to see their perseverance as they strive to keep their 'homelands' clean. Photos Feature wonderful students from Arunachal Pradesh showcasing Cloth Bags which they use and collecting edible and medicinal plant samples from their school's backyard.

Our Sustainable Action Plan had a vision of bringing together both the student communities under a common Educational Platform, where they could interact and exchange knowledge and information, and collaboratively work together, for a common Goal. The Vision has been realised through the various programmes and projects that we have been able to plan, execute and document, over the past few years. The impacts of those programmes are prominent, profound and far-reaching. Both the communities became our Key Stakeholders to identify and address Local and Global problems. Scopes of discussions were open, and the two started designing Action Plans of their own, which had enough scopes of implementation.

The Collaborative Stakeholders were able to -

Produce better outcomes or ideas and decisions
Develop community support for strategies and actions, as well as their decisions and programs
Uncover important local knowledge about natural resources and biodiversity threats and collectively work on Action Plans, through mutual Resource Sharing.
Highlight bio-geographical, social and cultural issues and context that influenced the success of their combined projects
Increase Community (Rural & Urban) understanding of environmental and conservation issues or management decisions in case of Habitat Loss, Animal Trafficking, Poaching, Illegal Hunting, etc.
Reduce or resolve conflicts between the stakeholders - themselves
Help successfully implement new programs or policies in the programmes for WildRoots - India
Create new relationships among the Parents and the adult community and carry forward the learning outcomes

Principal strategies involved -

Designing programmes that explored the ideas and learning outcomes of various nature related activities with the students of Urban Schools in Guwahati, Assam, Kolkata, West Bengal and Raipur, Chattisgarh and then replicating the same model in the context of Rural Schools, particularly the Govt. Schools of Assam, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Chattisgarh.
Designing Action Plans which bring the Student Communities from the Rural and Urban Sector together, where mutual knowledge sharing could be facilitated on a common platform.
Connecting with Affiliates like the British Council and facilitate International Environment Education Programmes, where the senior students from Universities could function as Mentors.
Conducting Teacher Training Programmes in both Urban and Rural Schools to empower the Community Educators.
Create opportunities of expression for both teachers and students from participating Educational Institutions and connect ideas through innovative concepts involving Art & Design and teambuilding Nature-based games.
Connecting the Indian Schools and Colleges with that of other countries, like USA and Australia.

*Reference to above images: The Students from Urban Educational Institutions (Schools & Colleges) from India are more aware of the use of Technology & ICT Tools. Photos feature students using High End Photography Equipments, Tabs and Apps for their Nature Activities.

Our success with the Urban Student Community had actually answered a question which was placed before us, during the inception of our Programmes - Can a Conservation Education Project for Educational Institutions have Broad Environmental Improvement Goals Instead of Specific Targets (Species-based)?

Yes, some of our projects did not have specific, species or biodiversity targets. But, we wanted to think through what we were trying to do. In the course of our designs and development of the programmes for WildRoots. we were working to strengthen a 'local conservation constituency' comprising of students and teachers from Educational Institutions (Rural & Urban), that will help protect a broad spectrum of biodiversity, or were designing a program that provides people with the 'skills' to get involved in the learning process-an approach that would benefit a number of environmental issues, not just one species or biodiversity target. We were focused on creating a broad societal change (diversifying the conservation movement, integrating environmental education into the existing formal school programming) to help protect the environment in the future and deal with local and global problems that we don't even know about now.

Visuals showcase Interactive Training Sessions in Progress with the teachers of Rural & Urban Schools

The difference between these projects and those that are aimed at a specific biodiversity is basically how an organisation measures success. Many will focus on people measures. (Did the conservation field become more diverse? Do more people in a community consider themselves part of the environmental movement? Did more people vote for green-leaning candidates? Do more young people understand how to get involved in civic issues when they graduate from secondary and high schools?) There are no clear-cut boundaries, though. As we understood, many projects with conservation targets include strategies that build capacity, educate, engage, and change societal values. However, it was important that we ensured that we have had measurable targets for any project or activities we were working on, even if the end goal is a 'broad environmental improvement goal.

Approaching the Final Goal:

With the little success stories guiding us, and equipped with the connections that we had established in the Educational Institutes of India, we finally approached our target - Synergy between Urban and Rural Educational Institutions through Environment & Conservation Education. Through the empowerment of Teachers first, when it came to the Rural Schools, through workshops and awareness programmes that involved Action Plan Design and Execution, we were able to create an organized Task Force to disseminate the 'Learning Modules' to the students. It was time to bring the two together - the Rural and Urban Student Communities. First, there was hesitation from both the Sectors, but since the synergy was approached through Games and Design (Art & Craft), the connection could be established easily and fast. Though it took us about 3 years to establish a common platform of sharing. Knowledge sharing started to happen, dialogues were exchanged, local problems were discussed, collective solutions were thought about, and many wonderful avenues opened up for us. Our approach was simple, targeting what we call as 'bite-sized small goals, which helped us to imbibe in the minds of the participants, the true ethos of collaboration and the need to 'connect. On one side, we connected the students from the City Schools to the ones that were located in the villages, forest fringes, on the other, we designed Student Internship Programmes for Universities and Colleges, so that we could obtain volunteers for our Community Connection Programmes. The Participating Student Communities followed the same pattern of - Assess, Plan, Implement, Analyze & Adapt & Share,, which they learnt from us, during the Training Sessions that we arranged and organised for them, as an initial step. Equipped with all the training our Mentors have had, we were able to create a 'Student-Led' approach for the execution of our Programmes and Activities. The Results only showed that we were on the right path!

2. The Rural Student Community, who stay close to Natural Spaces, Forests, Glass-lands, etc. have a better understanding of Forest Resources (indigenous knowledge), and can identify diverse species of flora & fauna, being exposed to age old family customs of hunting (sustainable), gathering, use of medicinal plants, use of natural or forest produce, sustainable farming, etc., but lacked resources and exposure to Publications and ICT Tools.

Students from Colleges (Calcutta University & Delhi University) and Schools connecting with the students of the Govt. Schools at Pakke Tiger Reserve, Arunachal Pradesh

Photo Documentation of the Programme

“There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world,
and that is an idea whose time has come.”

– Victor Hugo