SA Scout Association Climate Change programme wins Greening the Future award

This article appeared in the Mail & Guardian Greening the Future supplement on 7 June 2007.

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Getting them when they're young

Fiona Macleod

Special commendation - Energy and carbon management:
South African Scout Association's Climate Change Programme

The South African Scouts firmly believe in getting important messages to people while they are young. With their climate change programme, they are encouraging young people to become "change agents for climate change education and action". Youth undertake activities that help them understand the cause and effects of climate change, lower their energy use and provide them with practical adaptation skills in water management.

The project is the first to be developed by a scout association in a developing country and is being replicated in other African countries. It is implemented by the South African Scouts Association (Sasa), with the assistance of Scouts Canada and The Delphi Group, a leading strategic environment and clean energy consulting firm. Considering there are 28-million youths in scouts associations worldwide, and that more than 18-million of them live in developing countries, the programme's potential impact is huge.

Greening the Future judges were impressed with the project's reach among the youth, whose future was ultimately at stake as a result of the impacts of climate change and who will be making critical decisions to mitigate these impacts. "We encourage the scouts to keep on going with the project and to take their message to tomorrow's leaders," the judges said.

The first phase of the project, completed in March 2005, involved more than 700 youths throughout South Africa. It also included 3 600 underprivileged rural youngsters involved in an outreach programme managed by the Scout Centre for Excellence in Nature and the Environment (Scene) in North West province. Scene won a Greening the Future Award in 2004 for excellence in environmental education.

"More than three-quarters of Sasa's membership is in rural, disadvantaged communities. These youth are an important source of creativity, enthusiasm and drive for actions to address climate change," said the association.

At a scout workshop held in Namibia in April last year, several other African countries adopted the South African climate change model and Namibia is implementing it. At the World Scout Conference in Tunisia in September 2005, it was hailed as a "best practice" model for the 216 scout associations across the world.

The programme provides hands-on, results-orientated climate change education and training. Its various stages focus on different aspects of energy use and efficiency, recycling, caring for trees and water conservation.

Responses by youths who have participated indicate they understood the connection between the programme and actions they need to take in their individual lives to prevent climate change.

"I will stop global warming by wearing a jersey instead of using electric heaters," said one. "I have learned not to pour water all over the place," said another.

The project is based on a similar model developed in Canada to enable Canadian youths to play a leadership role in reducing greenhouse gases. The Canadian International Development Agency funded the development of material to suit South African conditions, and the United Nations Environment Programme funded the Africa roll-out workshop in Namibia last April.

This climate change initiative joins Sasa's various other experiential education programmes, which include HIV/Aids awareness, child protection and poverty alleviation. "The approach adopted was designed to enable the programme to become mainstreamed as a long-term initiative in scout programming," said Sasa.

Youngsters are encouraged to take their increased awareness of, and contributions to, adaptation measures and the reduction of greenhouse gases into their communities and homes. "Given that two-thirds of members of the international scouting movement are from developing countries, there is a huge potential to leverage this knowledge and expertise," said the association.

"Experiential education programmes have proved successful in realising results in environmental education. They also permit civil society to become part of the environmental solution."