On March 17, 2018, the Know Your World Initiative and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Associated Schools Project held the Sustainable Development Goals Challenge-UNESCO Associated Schools Project Network Partnership at the Starehe Boys’ Centre. This was a follow-up event following the Launch of the SDG Challenge held at the United Nations Office in Nairobi in 2017.
Among others, the event offered students a chance to show how much progress they had made with SDG related Projects they had been carrying out in their schools.
Projects
The chemistry club at Pangani Girls presented a clean water project in which they sought to recycle dirty water using chemical agents. With this project they have been able to save enough drinking water for consumption at the school during the dry season and in the process, significantly reduced the school’s annual expenditure on water from the City Council.
Parklands Arya also presented something on environment, proposing maximum use and recycling of organic waste from farmlands. Students at the school have also been donating sanitary towels for distribution to their less privileged colleagues.
At our Lady of Fatima, in collaboration with the school administration, students grow and harvest food for distribution to needy students. At Starehe meanwhile, an evergreen compound (regardless of the weather) populated by shade is testimony of the students’ efforts to keep the environment. Among others, they take turns to plant and nurture tree seedlings.
There were many more projects. While some have gone further, some remain concepts yet to be actualised. The KYWI intends to collaborate with the Ministry of Education’s Kenya National Commission for UNESCO (KNATCOM) and enroll the schools members of the KYWI in the UNESCO ASP Net Programme, where their ideas will be improved and facilitated to national relevance.
The Know Your World Initiative is a programme of the Centre for International and Security Affairs focusing on building global citizens and enhancing people to people relations. The UNESCO Associated Schools Project network (ASPnet) was founded in 1953 and is a global network with more than 9,000 educational institutions in 180 countries. Member institutions range from pre-schools, primary schools, secondary schools, vocational training institutions and teacher training institutions. All these institutions work in support of the four UNESCO ASP net themes of intercultural understanding, peace and human rights, intercultural dialogue, education for sustainable development and United Nations priorities. The need to enjoin the schools to the Global network recognises the international agenda and contribution of the students’ role in making the country live more sustainably.
There is also a greater need to cooperate with similar structures as established to have greater influence and motivation to improve the projects and impact.^
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