The preservation of the Amazon is one of the most important topics in the discussions involving Brazil during the week of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
The use of education as a weapon to preserve the Amazon is the basis of the work that the Iungo Institute is doing together with the Pará Department of Education. The partnership includes training more than 15,000 state school teachers and creating teaching materials based on the knowledge of those who live in the region.
“We in education know that the more participation, the greater the engagement of students. The best way for us to compete with screens and other aspects that interest young people is to create conditions so that they can participate and see themselves as agents of change. In addition to learning the content, they create projects and carry out practical actions in their schools to truly see themselves as people who change the world,” says Paulo Emílio, president of Instituto Iungo.
In addition to presenting the project to the world, Paulo Emílio recalls that the visit to New York provides contact with experiences and ideas from other countries that can be taken to Brazil.
But for the Secretary of Education of Pará, Rossieli Soares, the involvement of new generations through education still does not have the prominence it deserves during climate week in New York.
“Environmental education is not at the center of the agenda of major debates as it should be. We are trying to bring this agenda more and more to the forefront, and we in Pará made a decision with Governor Helder Barbalho to make education available to all children. It is the only place in Brazil, and in the world, that we know of, where from the age of six until the last year of high school, there is an environmental education class every week.”
Soares reveals that he needed partnerships to put the idea into practice. “This is so innovative, we couldn’t do it alone. We need help. And the Iungo Institute is our main partner.”
The secretary highlights education as the most effective public policy to reach all children in a state as large and with a population as spread out as Pará, which he calls several Amazons in one state, especially given the difficulties caused by recent fires and droughts.
This content was originally published in Project uses education to preserve the Amazon on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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