Problem overview:
Awareness and visions: The Environmental Pioneer Brigade Programme believes that if children have been made aware of environmental problems and how to manage the problems or be preventative so that the problems would not occur, they would change their behavior to be more environmental friendly.
Training and educational initiatives: School children are being educated about the environment in hope that they will pass on the knowledge to elder family members and people in the village so to raise awareness and make change in behavioral patterns as much as possible
Background in summary:
Chronology:
| 1986 |
The first Environmental Pioneer Brigade was established at Maligawatte New town under the direct supervision of the Central Environmental Authority (CEA). |
| 1987 |
A decision was taken to form Brigades at district level on the basis of two per district. |
| 1992 |
The number of Pioneer Brigades was increased to four per district. |
| 2000 |
The programme was expanded from 1850 to 3005 schools throughout the island. |
The establishment of Environmental Pioneer Brigades in Schools has the following objectives:
- Promoting environmental awareness and motivating school children to participate in environmental activities.
- Broadening the knowledge on environmental protection and management
- Carrying the environmental message to their elders at home.
- Building a new generation of environmentally concerned
- Changing the childrens behavioral patterns and attitudes to be more environmentally friendly.
The activities that are undertaken under the programme include:
- Creating greater awareness on environmental protection and management,
- Engaging in field studies and observation tours
- Implementation of small projects,
- Undertaking training,
- Preparation of leaflets and study reports, and etc.
Dependency of the programme on CEA: The Pioneer Brigade Movement is dependent on the CEA for its survival and future development. Teachers guide books, identity cards, caps medals, letter heads, audio cassettes, certificates, note books and financial assistance for small scale projects and training are provided by the Central Environmental Authority. Therefore, the CEA welcomes voluntary financial assistance. This Programme will be extended to 2000 schools by the end of 1999.
See also Capacity building among school children on the protection of environment, Sri Lanka
See document in full
Good practice rating:
(1 for the best, 5 for the lowest score) |
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Sustainability
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Efficiency
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| 3 |
 Improvement in either the environment of economic condition with no harm to the other. |
2 |
Cost efficient. |
| 2 |
Sustainable over time (not one-off) |
Process |
| Adaptability |
1 |
Participation of the community |
| 2 |
Location adaptability (can the project be done in other places?) |
2 |
Participation of resource owners/users |
| 2 |
Socio-cultural adaptability. |
2 |
Partnerships between various actors (Governments, NGO, Academia, Private) |
| 2 |
Level of development adaptability. |
- |
Degree of coordination and cooperation between government departments. |
| 2 |
Style of government adaptability. |
- |
Ability to attract political interest/support |
| 2 |
Degree of decentralization adaptability. |
- |
Procedures for feedback and review. |
Comments on this example:
To change behavioral patterns, in this case, assuming only of childrens, they could be involved in monitoring the environment, as in the case of Australias Streamwatch. By giving responsibilities to children for monitoring the environmental condition, children grow more concern about the well being of the environment, and could eventually behave in a more environmentally cautious way. The secondary benefit from involving school children in the monitoring process is, the authorities could cut back on expenses for hiring officials to do the job.
Sri Lanka, compared to other countries in the South Asian region, such as, Iran, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan, has the highest adult literacy rate of 90.2% (source: http://www.undp.org/hdro/98hdi.htm). This may be one factor why the programme was a success. Because success, in terms of magnitude or how much impact the programme could create, depends on the number of schools and number of people in the education system. Since the programme runs only in schools, if there were more schools available and if more children were educated, then the programme would create an impact on a very larger scale.
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Sustainability of the project:
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Awareness and visions: The aim of the Environmental Pioneer Brigade programme is to raise environmental awareness among school children and their family members. Ironically, despite increased awareness, in many cases, behavioral patterns do not change simultaneously. There are many explanations, for example, some behavioral patterns have been practiced for a very long time and would be difficult to change or, changes could effect their usual living patterns in a negative way, etc.
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Adaptability of the project to other situations:
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Although school curriculum varies from country to country, the sole purpose for every school is the same, to educate the people. Therefore, the Pioneer Brigade programme could be adaptable to any school throughout the ESCAP region, because the programme was set up to educate and create environmental awareness. Also, running the programme is a very simple task, only basic teaching materials, for example, posters or radio cassettes, are required. As long as there is an institutional body to support the programme technically and financial, as in the case of Sri Lanka, where most of the support came from Central Environmental Authority (CEA).
| Process of decision making and implementation: |
Training and educational initiatives: The future of the state of our environment depends a great a deal on what we do today and also on what our younger generations will do tomorrow. Present environmental problems are all due to impacts from human activities. Better understanding of the relationship between human and the environment will help broaden our knowledge and perspective towards more environmental friendly actions. It is best to start at a very young age.
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Documentation: |
Literature or other written project review references
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Source of Information: |
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Contacts: |
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Submitted by: |
L.S.G. Tillekeratne
Additional Director General
Sri Lank Export Development Board
and updated by (September 2000)
Arlene Kumaradasa
154/9 Vijithapura, Mawatha
Walpola, Angoda
Sri Lanka
Tel: 941-883098/ 875327 (office)
Fax: 941-589369 (C/o SACEP)
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