Environmental education and awareness rising

The importance of environmental education and accessing information about environmental issues should not be underestimated. Article 29 of the UNCRC2 sets out the aims of education, and states that children’s education should help them fully develop their personalities, talents and abilities. It should teach them to understand their own rights, and to respect other people’s rights, cultures and differences. It should help them to live peacefully and protect the environment.

Environmental education is one of the ways to promote the right to a healthy environment and to raise awareness about environmental issues. To be comprehensive a curriculum in environmental education must include the following topics: 

•     the importance of clean water and how to minimise the waste of clean water, 
•     environmental harms (including pollution of water, air and soil, climate change, chemicals etc.), 
•     how to access protection mechanisms to achieve environmental justice,vi 
•     hygiene and sanitation (connected to article 29 of the UNCRC protecting the right to health)

It is also fundamental that a curriculum on environmental education discusses the rights of children and young people, in light of boosting their engagement and participation.  

Environmental education places itself at the core of good practices for the right to healthy environment, especially if it also includes training on how to participate in the protection of the environment through advocacy and practices. Children and young people can contribute to raise awareness and create educational opportunities for others in their communities and at the international level. Support mechanisms to organise children and young people and communities to raise their awareness and safe spaces for their participation are necessary since otherwise environmental education runs the risk of not being properly implemented. What did we find looking for the best practices in this domain? 

• Successful projects often integrated environmental education in the regular school curricula for children and young people, aiming to provide a large number of young people with a solid knowledge basis on their right to a healthy environment.
• To further strengthen environmental education, beyond the classroom environment, introducing after-school activities as eco-clubs and youth networks is an option. How to do it best? Create the eco-clubs starting at the schools, through teachers and headmasters, and then allow children to take the lead and work independently. 
• Include the community in educational activities. For instance, in Peru there has been evidence of good use of ancestral knowledge for educational purposes on environmental issues. In Southern Africa, children started to mobilise community leaders and create opportunities within the community to further strengthen education activities on the right of the child to a healthy environment.