Climate Change - in Sierra Leone and in Canada

This week, as countries from around the world are working to negotiate a new agreement on climate change at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change taking place in Copenhagen, I thought it would be fitting to post something about climate change. I have found that there is generally very little talk about environmental issues here in Sierra Leone. This is not that surprising to me, and I’m sure is the case in other developing countries as well. Both your average person and the government tend to be focused on first meeting basic needs (food, water, shelter, health, education) before they can begin to think about environmental issues. Unfortunately, many environmental problems tend to have longer-term effects, which are generally less pressing than the urgent and immediate needs of survival today. However, environmental challenges, including climate change, will have an impact on the country’s ability to meet its development goals, if not right now, then certainly in the future.

Climate change is already having an effect in Sierra Leone. Over the past few years, changes in weather patterns have been noticeable. The rains are starting later in the year and continuing on longer. This affects farming patterns and timetables, and can reduce agricultural productivity. The longer wet season results in more mosquitoes, which spread malaria. The later start to the rainy season also has the potential to affect the provision of reliable power in the country from the Bumbuna hydro dam which has recently come online. Developing countries like Sierra Leone tend to have the lowest emissions and are the least responsible for causing climate change, yet they will likely experience more devastating effects from climate change (droughts, severe weather, food shortages, rising sea level, etc.) and have far fewer resources to be able to mitigate and adapt to these changes. This actually seems to be one of the big contentious issues in the discussions in Copenhagen – how much will rich countries help poor countries adapt to the problems caused by climate change.

A little more on the negotiations happening in Copenhagen: The intention at Copenhagen is for countries to reach a new agreement on climate change that will replace the Kyoto Protocol (set to expire in 2012). The Copenhagen negotiations are aiming to achieve agreement on greenhouse gas emissions targets (with the aim of bringing developing countries on board to mandated rather than voluntary targets), financial support for developing countries to help them mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change, and a carbon trading scheme. About 100 world leaders are attending (including US President Barack Obama, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, but not Canada’s Stephen Harper) and all 192 countries will be represented. (Most of this info is from this BBC article). More info on the Copenhagen conference is available at http://en.cop15.dk/.

Although it is important to bring developing countries into any agreement on climate change, especially the big developing countries like China and India, in order to reach the targets being discussed (keeping global average temperature rise under 2 degrees Celsius, or even 1.5 degrees), it is critical that developed countries step up and implement their fair share of reductions. Unfortunately, Canada’s reputation on climate change is currently pretty abysmal. Now, with the new Obama administration in the United States, Canada seems to be performing even worse than the United States under Bush, which is saying quite a bit. We’ve already been awarded the “fossil of the day” award in Copenhagen – awarded by a coalition of 450 environmental groups to the countries “doing the most to obstruct progress in the global climate change talks.” Canada is the only country to actually renege on the greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets it agreed to when it ratified Kyoto, and now has the lowest targets among developed countries (a 20% reduction by 2020, but from a 2006 base year – only a 3% reduction from 1990, the base year for Kyoto). This stinging critique of Canada’s actions on climate change (or lack thereof) by George Monbiot (http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/12/01/the-urgent-threat-to-world-peace-is-%E2%80%A6-canada/) has actually made me feel embarrassed to be a Canadian.

All countries must do their part if we are to prevent global warming from having a devastating effect on the planet, and a disproportionate effect on the poor.

Teacher workshops #2 - Using Play in the Classroom

Last weekend I finished the second set of teacher training workshops for volunteer teachers at cdpeace pilot schools in Paki Masabong and Gbonkolenken chiefdoms. Like the last set, the workshops were well attended, and I think the teachers really enjoyed them.

This set of workshops focused on using play in the classroom. They were facilitated by Delia Kay (photo at left is Delia with teachers in Gbonkolenken). Delia is from the UK and currently working as a volunteer at the Fatima Institute in Makeni. I met her in Makeni, and one day we were talking about our work and interests, and she mentioned that she was a teacher for many years in England, and was head teacher at a primary school. She also said that she was interested in doing more volunteer work with teachers while she was here in Sierra Leone. I immediately took advantage of the opportunity to ask her to facilitate some teacher workshops for us, and happily, she agreed. Since I am not trained as a teacher myself, I was happy to have someone else with actual classroom experience help me out with the training.

In the workshops, Delia set the context by talking about how students learn. She reminded the teachers that students learn not only by listening (auditory learners), but also by seeing (visual learners) and doing (kinaesthetic learners). So much of the teaching style here is teachers standing at the front of the room and talking at students, and many students just don’t learn well that way. Games are a great way to offer stimulation to different learners and also to give the kids a fun activity to do while they are still learning. Delia also talked about using games as a behaviour management tool, something which fits well in our overall efforts to eliminate the use of corporal punishment in schools.

Delia then taught the teachers a series of games they could use in their classrooms, and the teachers themselves actually played the games to see how they worked. The games they learned were Housie, Housie (hangman, but with a drawing of a house instead of a hanging man, which is really quite gruesome when you think about it), several math games involving math problems as clues (Ten Numbers and Multiplication Bingo with actual bingo cards), a couple of word/spelling games (one with homonyms and one with scrambled letters that you make into words – kind of like Boggle), and charades.

The teachers seemed to enjoy playing all the games, but my favourite by far was charades. No one had ever played this game before, so the teachers were a bit unsure of how to go about it. The things they had to act out were all animals, things like lion, frog, butterfly and monkey. To be honest, they all kind of looked the same to me when the teachers acted them out, and I had no clue whatsoever which animal they were trying to portray :-) But the teachers seemed to be able to guess, and there was lots of laughter, so it worked well for them. I have some good videos of the charades as well – they’re posted with the photos from the workshop at http://picasaweb.google.ca/clarepoulev/TeacherWorkshops2#.

Delia also mentioned a website which has many resources and ideas for primary school teachers in particular: http://www.primaryresources.co.uk.

School twinning

This week I received the first letters from schools in Canada that are twinned with schools here in Sierra Leone. I received three letters, all from grade 6 classes, and all from schools in Nova Scotia. The letters were from Mount Edward Elementary School, twinned with SLMB Primary School in Mabarr Line, Gbonkolenken Chiefdom; from Madeline Symonds Middle School, twinned with Makambray Community Primary School in Makambray, Paki Masabong Chiefdom; and from Shannon Park School, twinned with Mapaki Primary School in Mapaki, Paki Masabong Chiefdom. A few photos of the Sierra Leone classes are posted online in the school twinning album.

Doing the twinning visits was a lot of fun. I visited all the schools in Sierra Leone this week to share the letters. It was really interesting to share information with the schools here, and find out from them what they wanted to share with and ask their new Canadian friends. Generally, for ease of understanding with translation and in order to make sure the content is as relevant and interesting as possible, I don’t read the letters exactly word for word. Instead I share the main ideas in the letters, and any questions the Canadian students have asked their twinned school. The Canadian students at each school shared a lot of the same information in their letters: games and sports they enjoyed, subjects they studied at school, and how they spent their free time. They asked questions of the Sierra Leonean students about what the country was like, the seasons, the animals, and any famous people here.

The schools here in Sierra Leone were very interested in the letters and seemed happy that students in Canada were thinking of them. Some of the students asked me to ask the Canadian students to visit them here, eager to get to know their new friends better. Students here were curious about students in Canada as well. They asked about the weather in Canada, the food, if students liked to play the same games and sports as them, and if they had farms. Generally in the twinning visits I focus on sharing similarities between the students rather than differences. Also, the focus of the twinning is on friendship and sharing, and not on material support, although in many cases the Canadian schools do raise money to support our work with schools here.

I have already sent the reply letters back to Canada and am looking forward to another round of twinning visits. I think it’s a great for students in both countries to learn more about each other and about global issues in general through the twinning process. Peaceful Schools International is right now in the process of examining how we can expand the twinning program. There’s been a lot of interest in school twinning, both from schools in Canada and the US and from developing countries as well. The main challenge is the distribution and interpretation of letters in developing countries. In many cases, schools don’t have access to computers or to the internet to be able to receive letters that way, and the mail systems are often not reliable. The twinning program in Sierra Leone works because there is a volunteer here available to receive the letters that come by email and take them to the schools. Once we figure out this challenge, PSI hopes to be able to implement a more comprehensive twinning program for our member schools from all around the world.

If you want to find out more about PSI's twinning work, please see:
http://peacefulschoolsinternational.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=89&Itemid=117
http://peacefulschoolsinternational.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=90&Itemid=86
http://cvangurp.googlepages.com/schooltwinningactivities

A few more links

The Nova Scotia Gambia Association (NSGA) has a new short documentary on their work in The Gambia and on the lessons we in the developed world can learn from our friends and partners in West Africa. The NSGA also works in Sierra Leone. I haven't watched the whole film yet (stupid slow internet), but the 6 minutes I did watch were very good. You can see the film online at http://www.journeymanfilm.com/work/ - click on the photo of the African man in the bottom right corner to watch.

Sign Amnesty International USA's petition on maternal mortality in Sierra Leone: http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/sierra_leone/slpetition.php

Also, if you're interested in issues like development, global health, aid, and Africa, there are quite a few blogs that I read regularly on these topics - see the blog roll I have posted (scroll down, it's on the right) for a list of a few.