Planet Savers on the Move

PLANET SAVERS ON THE MOVE

Educating Children Around the Planet, for The Planet

Photo Credit: Solly Levi

Sonja Bohnsack

‘Teaching children about the natural world should be treated as one of the most important events in their lives’ - Thomas Berry

As the old adage goes, ‘You can’t teach an old dog new tricks!’ Adults are set in their ways and are unwilling to emerge from their comfort zones, even if that would mean saving our planet!

They are not prepared to make the changes required to heal our beautiful Earth; well not enough of them in order to make a difference. Therefore, we have to look to our children to secure our future and, more importantly, theirs. The saying ‘Our Children, Our Future’ couldn't be more apt than right now! Our children and our future go hand in hand. Our children deserve a shot at a life on a beautiful and healthy planet that sustains and supports them - right now we, their parents, are destroying their only chance of experiencing what that could be like. Ironically, it is up to us to teach our children what needs to be done and how to do it to make the difference! We need to inspire, guide and create the awareness that they need to motivate that shift in behaviour that is so necessary to save our incredible home called Earth. The only way forward is for children everywhere to take control of the current chaos and redirect the trajectory on which we are hurtling like an unguided missile, totally out of control on a path of self-destruction!

This can only be done by proactively teaching and guiding children around the world, on what our Earth needs from us. The children in turn will educate the adults as to which actions, in-actions and behaviour shifts are required to turn the tide and put us back on track.

‘Teach the children so it will not be necessary to teach the adults’ - Abraham Lincoln
So how do we achieve this? By doing interactive environmental educational presentations at schools, from Grade 0 to Grade 10. All schools, advantaged, disadvantaged and every school in between. In this way it is entirely possible for a Presentation Team of three or four people to impact 90 000 children per year! The presentations will involve an exciting, interactive and fun theatre-style play, focusing on important issues like creating food gardens, planting trees, the impact of littering, the importance of bees and owls, respect for all fauna and flora and clean water and ecosystems. What is important is how these planet saving issues relate to each child in their own world and how they can make the positive shifts for themselves and those around them. Each child will receive a Planet Saver Super-Hero T-shirt, and a take-away such as a small fruit tree/vegetable or pot of honey in order to share and educate their loved ones at home.

At the end of the presentation, the children will be encouraged to become Planet Saver Super-Heroes and each Hero action they do from then on, will be logged in a journal, on an App on their Smartphones if they have one, or with their school, which can be recorded on a database. For the older children, there will be workshops on various topics like Beekeeping, Game ranging, ‘Wastetrepreneurs’, creating Eco bricks to build furniture, selling fruit, vegetables, eggs etc. which they can then benefit from as entrepreneurs, start their own businesses and educate their customers.

In the words of an 11-year-old Planet Saver - On-The-Move - Super Hero:
‘Someone asked me the other day, how I think we could save the planet and make a difference as kids. I thought about this and realized that most kids today are too caught up in superficial things like social media and online gaming or are dreaming about living in massive castles or having tigers – yet very little ever think about this topic because nobody is talking about it.

It’s not that kids do not care – we do. The easiest social communities are created amongst us. We just need leaders our age to create awareness and forge the path to making a change in the world. People say kids can help save the planet – I say that ONLY kids can save the planet!

We don’t have bad habits set in stone yet. We can create a movement against plastic, create groups to pick up litter, boycott against zoos. Without us, there is no future for any business. Sooner or later all of the future decisions will be up to us and its up to us to accept them or not.

Lets really think here, would any of our dreams come true as kids if we killed the planet anyway? No they wouldn’t .. so lets make our number one priority to help save the planet. Our whole future could be stolen, and we would be the thieves after all…’ Akira Diamond Savage (11)

Becoming a Planet Saver, with hope in your heart, inspiration in your soul, driven by hard work to create change, will positively and automatically result in what comes NEXT!