13/04/2018 - Bringing Resilience Building to the Classroom

The Instituto Nacional de Educación Básica de Telesecundaria in Las Lisas, is one of the 156 schools in the region of Santa Rosa, Guatemala where the PfR Educational Modules are being used to teach resilience building.

Since 2017, 356 teachers in the region have been trained to include modules on Climate Change Adaptation, Ecosystem Management and Restoration, Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience in the school curricula. A year later, the results are becoming visible through the students, mainly between 12 and 16 years old, who are now well aware of the importance of environmental protection and the value of the mangroves around their village.

To put the learnings into practice, and to make their own contribution towards safeguarding the environment, the students are now collecting bottles for recycling and they have started creating souvenirs from recycled material. They will sell the souvenirs at fairs to earn income for their annual school trip. Another way in which the students are applying what they have learned is by sharing it at home and changing their family’s habits. 

One student told PfR: “We now bring our own bags to the store when we do grocery shopping and we use cloth napkins when we buy tortilla.”

In 2014, PfR Guatemala developed four different modules of methodological support which are used as a teaching tool for children and youth on how to build resilient communities. The Educational Modules were developed thanks to the support of Ministerio de Educación (Ministry of Education), Ministerio de Ambiente y Resurcos Naturales (Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources), Coordinadora Nacional para la Reducción de Desastres (Civil Protection) and Consejo Nacional de Áreas Protegidas (National Council of Protected Areas).

You can find the modules here