The Big Tree Society Programme Aimed At Kuwait Schools

"The Big Tree Society" is a programme directed to schools for the purpose of enhancing awareness of the importance of environmental conservation, which will be launched for the first time in Kuwait at the beginning of the new school year in September 2012. The program implemented by Boubyan Bank in cooperation with UNESCO encourages students of all ages and all school years to positively impact their future and provides them with the opportunity to explore their personal capabilities through participation in a special competition aiming at enhancing environmental awareness and impact on the environment.

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The Big Tree Society

As part of the preparations made by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in cooperation with Boubyan Bank for the environmental program "The Big Tree Society", Mark Sutcliffe, Project Officer -Natural Science Section at UNESCO - Doha Office recently visited Kuwait and met with Waleed Al-Yaqout, GM - Administration Group at the Bank to discuss the latest developments related to the initiative.

The meeting witnessed discussions about the preparations for launching the initiative announced last June on the celebration of the World Environment Day by examining all necessary elements to actually launch the initiative and spread it among all schools in Kuwait in ways that realize its objectives.

Meanwhile, all the details of the initiative including the ways of competition among schools, all conditions related to the way of schools' participation in the initiative, and the competition that will be held among schools for proposing initiatives and projects for environmental conservation will be announced next October.

Footprint

As UNESCO's Mark Sutcliffe said, "The Big Tree Society's overall aim is to enhance the behaviour of people and their relationship with the buildings they are in, such as schools, where the ecological footprint can be actively improved, especially via the development of improved water, energy, and waste-management, as well as reflecting on their environmental health."

The initiative is based on two rules: The first is that the students must be the ones who decide on how to change their behaviour, and the second is that the solution must involve everyone in the school, from the teachers to the students. Apart from these two rules, schools are free to choose to follow any environmental program they want, or they can even create their own.

Commenting on the initiative, Al-Yaqout said: "It is a pleasure for us to be partners for one of the biggest UN organizations in raising the level of awareness of the necessity to take more practical steps towards sustained environmental conservation out of the care of all of us for the future of coming generations."

"Boubyan Bank believes in the necessity of cooperation among all parties in any society in order to take the actions and introduce more initiatives that help create actual awareness of the importance of the environment, and it is the responsibility of current generations to conserve the environmental resources we now have to sustain future generations," he added.

Al-Yaqout also expressed his wish, as well as the wish of all Boubyan Bank's staff that this initiative realizes its objectives, whether on the level of Kuwait schools or the Kuwaiti society, especially being the first of its kind that is implemented in cooperation between the UNESCO and a Kuwaiti bank which believes in the importance of social responsibility and its role as a private institution in raising the level of awareness of social issues.

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