Taking better care of the environment

After several months of coordination and many meetings, we started our great project at the Huancaro school “Caring for our environment for a better world”.

Under the coordination of the Añañau team, Andre Lopes, intern from Brazil who took a master’s degree in Sustainability and the environment, the collaboration of the Communication for Development interns at the National University of Cusco Stephanie Cruz and Mirxa Gabriela Sierra Yáñez and the joint work with the director of the Huancaro School and the entire teaching staff this project took place from the month of October till December 2022.
The main objective is to raise awareness among the pupils population about caring for the environment through dynamic activities with the use of recycled materials, participatory talks, audiovisual support, among others. During the next 7 weeks we will strategically deal with topics such as the formation of our solar system, geography of Peru and the world, until we reach the main point, which is how to take care of our planet and live on it responsibly and sustainably.

In the first week of development of the project we took a deeper look into the formation of our solar system and the planet earth and during the second week, we talked about the geological eras and the dinosaurs. Through practical experience, observation and experimentation the children learned a little more about these important topics.

We cannot take care of what we do not know, for this reason in week 3 of the project “Caring for our environment for a better world” we talked about the continents, South America, Peru, its protected areas, rivers, valleys, mountains and its relief en general. Between fun activities, videos and explanations, the children were able to put together a map of the earth based on what they had learned.

During the fourth week, we talked about our country, under the motto knowing our Peru and its riches to take better care of it, the children are becoming aware of how to take care of our planet and with the use of recycled materials we carried out fun activities.

In the fifth and sixth week, the pollution of our planet and the 3 R’s were the topics covered. Learning more about air, water and land pollution, are vital issues to later understand how better apply the 3 R’s, recycle, reuse and reduce consumption. The children prepared educational materials and did arts and crafts activities making different works with plastic bottles, cardboard, paper and other recycled materials. We are almost ready to present our fair with a beautiful exposition of everything!

As part of the project “Caring for our environment for a better world”, Añañau donated garbage cans to the school in Huancaro for all the general areas and for each classroom, so that we can see that the children are using the bins correctly and it will help the school to keep all the areas cleaner.

The project wouldn’t be complete as well without an environmental brigade formed by the pupils. After informative talks we were able to form this brigade by holding an election in each classroom. The children committed to caring better for their school environment and for the planet and to be aware of the work they have to do.

After more than 8 weeks of work and many fun, educational, interactive and experimental activities at the Huancaro school, the project “Taking care of our environment for a better world” came to an end with the children’s work exhibition fair. They were able to show everything they had learned and parents, pupils, neighbors, teachers and the general public were able to observe all the effort that children are making to take better care of the environment. So let’s take care of the planet, it’s the only one we have!

Many congratulations to all the pupils and the Añañau and school team for the realization of this incredible and enormously valuable project and for all the hard work done!

Here you can see the documentary on the environmental awareness project that Añañau carried out at the E.I. Luis Vallejos Santoni in Huancaro, Cusco, made by the two Communication for Development trainees Mirxa Gabriela and Stephanie from the National University of Cusco.
Subtitles in English are coming soon.