January 19, 2024

It is with the generous support of the 60 million girls foundation that we kick off this new year with a new project. The Education for Climate Responsiveness project enables teachers to integrate Climate Change Education in their classrooms. While our unseasonably warm (before last week, anyway!) winter was perhaps a welcome reprieve for many of us, Indigenous rural communities in Central America are facing the increasing negative impacts of the climate crisis.

Communities with the greatest vulnerability to climate change are rural areas with high levels of poverty and great dependence on subsistence agriculture — communities like the ones we have successfully reached with mobile learning labs and digital libraries in Guatemala and Nicaragua to improve learning outcomes.

The technology established in just such communities will be used to deliver a Climate Change Education massive open online course (MOOC) for educators. The training will prepare teachers to prepare students to recognize, understand, and respond to climate change and its impacts.

Girls in these areas are particularly impacted by Climate Change challenges. Often, girls are responsible for domestic chores – water and firewood collection, washing, and food preparation – tasks complicated by climate change.

With the right education and support, girls also prove to be powerful leaders for climate change response in their families and communities. This project puts girls in classrooms with teachers that are prepared to equip them to take on the leadership challenge.

Bosawas Central America and the Caribbean climate change Education Education Gender Equality Guatemala In The Field indigenous peoples Nicaragua