Welcome back after what I hope was an enjoyable and relaxing summer. I had a great summer and am excited to get back into the swing of a new year at my club and with FAWCO. In this first article of the club year, we’d like to let you know what you can expect from us in the coming months – how we can help YOU bring FAWCO issues to your club members. Let me begin by pointing out that the environment is NOT solely FAWCO’s issue. But it is one of the four global issues that FAWCO focuses on and tries to inform members about. While we in the Environment Team think the environment is very important, you may think differently about its relevance in your life. Do you really want to focus on issues like food sustainability and pesticide use, water quality and shortages, and air pollution and air quality? While the topics of our articles are not “light,” they are relevant and important for anyone who eats, drinks water and breathes…so that would be all of us! Since we are all busy people, we make it easy to help you become more aware of environmental concerns AND enable you to pass this information on to your club members with a minimum of extra work. There are basically four things we can do for you…
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Informative articles: We publish (at least) one article per month, all of which can be found on the FAWCO website (under Global issues > Environment > Environment Articles). Links to these articles will magically appear in your inbox if you subscribe to the monthly Global Issues Digest. (Subscribing is possible for any of your club members, by the way!)While the topics of our articles are not “light,” each article is written by a member of our Environment Team, all of whom are members of a club much like yours. None of us are professionals in this field, so all the articles are written in
down-to-earth and easy to understand language. You can do a number of things with these articles: 1) read them to increase your awareness; 2) cut and paste the information (+ non-copyrighted illustrations!) for use in your club magazine, newsletter or e-news mailing; and 3) forward a link to the article (found on the FAWCO website) to interested club members. A couple of the topics we will write about this year: Oceans and Climate Change, Women in the Environmental Movement, The Impact of Climate Change on Migratory Birds and Environmentally Considerate Living. Our October article will be a write-up of the UN Climate Action Summit, which took place in London on September 23. For an example of one of our past articles, try Personal Food Choices for Health & Environment. -
Brief Information + links: While longer, more in-depth articles are good, sometimes a shorter piece or a list is just what
you need. Here is an example: 9 Tips for Using Less Plastic. And while words are good, a picture or short video says a thousand words! Check out these two short videos, which you can easily include in an e-news publication and/or forward to others: Dirty Water ad (1:23 mins.), Angry Birds and the UN (1:45 mins.) -
Club Environment Activity: While most FAWCO members agree that the environment is an important issue, very few clubs organize any kind of activity to increase awareness and/or take positive action on an environmental issue. The Environment Team would like to change that, and can help by providing ideas. We have a great new idea for a 2019–2020 club activity, and we are presently busy getting all the details organized. It has to do with plastics and trash…details to follow soon! Last year we published 15 ideas for an environmental activity at your club.
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Environmental Book Club Selection: We recommended an environmental book for the first
time in 2018 – Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver – and are excited to do that again this year. We will provide information on a book as well as some discussion questions/topics. Since many clubs have a book discussion group, this is a great way to introduce a fun and relevant activity to coincide with Earth Day on April 22.
Global Climate Strike – September 20 & 27
Have you heard of Greta Thunberg? She is a Swedish student who, at the age of 15, took time off from school to demonstrate outside the Swedish parliament holding up a sign calling for bold climate action. Her “school strike for the climate” began attracting media attention, and other students started to engage in similar protests in their own communities. Together they organized a school climate strike movement, under the name Fridays for Future. Now Greta says, “This shouldn’t be the children’s responsibility, now the adults also need to help us. We are calling for them to strike from their work. We need everyone!” So all around the world, on September 20 & 27, a Global Climate Strike will take place. I will be taking part in a big event in The Netherlands on Friday, September 27, along with other members of AWC The Hague. Check out the Climate Strike website to see if there is an event in your area that you could take part in. As the youth say, if not you, then who? If not now, then when?
The Environment Team is looking forward to communicating with you in the coming year, and we hope that we can learn and take action together for the good of our planet! We would love to hear any comments or suggestions you have!
“Not being able to do everything is no excuse for not doing everything you can.” Ashleigh Brilliant
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” Helen Keller
Environment co-chairs:
Anne van Oorschot (AWC The Hague) & Renuka Matthews (Individual Member,Dubai and FAUSA)
Environment Team:
Sarah Wallace (AWC Genoa), Paula Daeppen (AWC Zurich), Jule Deleroi (Augsburg IWC), Amal Lahlafi (AIWA Rabat), Rena Levin (AWC Oslo), Karen Rudin (AWC Zurich), Ann Zulliger (AWC Zurich), Valerie Garforth (FAUSA), Amanda Drollinger (AWC Central Scotland), Meenakshi Advani (AIWC Mumbai), Suzi Tart Maurice (AAWE Paris), Joan Evers (AWC Madrid), Alexandra Vo de Jager (AWG Paris, FAUSA)
Sources and links:
https://www.lessplastic.org.uk/9-tips-living-less-plastic/
World Vision: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH0MiUsdSLc
The United Nations Department of Global Communications (DGC): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_crrjX_5Uk&feature=youtu.be
https://globalclimatestrike.net/
