We often ask ourselves many questions: Is it our role to protect the environment, or is it up to our government, or to rich people, or to owners of factories? Can we as individuals help to save the environment?

As Palestinians, we notice that we have a double standard regarding the environment. We help and give support to each other, and we participate in voluntary work during the olive-harvest season. We are simple people who are strong, who want to survive, and who believe in our cause. Yet most of us are able to routinely throw trash and garbage in the streets or anywhere at any time.

People everywhere seem to cause a lot of damage to the earth - often irreversible damage. But we believe that each person, whether old or young, male or female, rich or poor, has a specific role to play in caring for and protecting the environment.

We work at the Environmental Education Center of the Evangelical Lutheran Church; it is a pioneering initiator in the field of environmental awareness and education, where we strive to save the environment. We have noticed that some of the environmental problems in our country are caused by a lack of awareness among the citizens. Through our activities and projects, we seek to address these problems and raise awareness of environmental issues among various groups within our society, especially students.

Youth are the primary target of our programmes. If we provide the necessary information and motivation, youth will grow in their sense of responsibility for the environment. To this end, the EEC began to establish youth environmental clubs in the year 2000 in private, public, and UNRWA schools in various areas, including Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and Ramallah.

One of the EEC projects, “Integrated Solid Waste Management,” aims to minimize and manage the solid waste at 12 schools. The project also aims to equip students with new skills that would enable them to learn how to produce good-quality recycled paper, how to reuse glass in creative ways, and how to collect organic waste in order to produce organic fertilizer (compost) by using the food residue at schools (sandwiches, fruits, and vegetables) to enrich school gardens.

Our work at the EEC enables us to say YES! We can protect our environment, and now is the time to show our loyalty to our country by choosing to stop littering and burning the garbage and to start conserving water and planting trees, and to make more of an effort to use public transportation when possible.

Buthina Hannuneh and Dua’ Salameh are educators and project coordinators at the Environmental Education Center/ELCJHL. They both have broad experience in planning and coordinating awareness-raising, capacity-building, and media projects. They can be reached at eec@p-ol.com.

Article photos by the Environmental Education Center