EkoSkola Malta

Publication of the Proposals from Students resulting from the Climate Change Mini Summits

The British High Commission partners with Nature Trust FEE Malta to support student empowerment.       

As part of the COP 26 follow up, the British High Commission in Malta supported Nature Trust-FEE Malta through the EkoSkola programme to hold five mini sessions that explored Climate Change from various dimensions. Several students from a total of 103 Maltese and Gozitan schools attended the online sessions. The recommendations of the EkoSkola students were collated in a publication and presented to the British High Commissioner to Malta, Her Excellency Katherine Ward LVO OBE this morning in a ceremony held at St. Ignatius College, Ħandaq Middle School. Several Young Reporters for the Environment were also rewarded for their distinguished entries on the same topic: Climate Change.

Transport, Life on Land, Life below Water, Energy and Water, Production and Consumption Patterns were amongst the themes discussed throughout the mini summits. During these online summits, students discussed with local experts the various perspectives of the issues explored and proposed practical actions that could be implemented to address the issues. The proposals were collated in a special publication together with several other inputs from younger children in the form of drawings and craft projects. A soft copy of the publication can be viewed here: https://ekoskola.org.mt/resource/we-care-about-our-present-and-our-future/ .   As is customary after each summit, EkoSkola students will be presenting their recommendations to the Members of Parliament in the yearly EkoSkola Parliament sitting later this year.

An interesting spin off from this series of mini summits, was an interest in learning what children from other countries are doing regarding climate change. Through the international Eco-Schools network, Nature Trust – FEE Malta brought together during an online meeting two schools from the UK and two from Malta to share their respective experiences of climate actions. The very positive vibes generated by this meeting have already resulted in the twinning of two schools and plans are already being discussed to organise similar meetings in the future.

Furthermore a total of 32 entries were submitted for the YRE competition, with students reporting on issues related to different aspects of Climate Change.  There were a total of 4 winners from several categories including the best article, best photo, best video and best entry overall.

Nature Trust – FEE Malta has over the years been a trail blazer in the field of children empowerment and has inspired other organizations by its mission and initiatives to give children space.  Nature Trust – FEE Malta remains committed towards providing further opportunities for children because it (like them) believes that they have every right to be involved in shaping the decisions that will affect their quality of life.