The Environmental Satellite of the URI President's Council wishes to thank the Cooperation Circles around the world for the creative and substantial proposals that were submitted for our first round of Seed Grants. The proposals included such activities as environmental awareness-raising seminars, trainings in schools and vocational centers, tree plantings for medicinal value and to combat climate change, planting home gardens, and promoting the use of solar cookers. A number of the proposals involved two or more CCs working together.
This Seed Grant project was made possible through the generosity of individuals in the URI community in San Francisco, California, who have made a donation to promote URI's involvement in environmental issues.
We are happy to announce the seven recipients of the URI Environmental Seed Grants, in alphabetical order:
1. Great Lakes Region Office, Uganda, in collaboration with
- Friends of Community Health
- Latter Glory of Religions in Busoga
- Youth Interfaith Mission Uganda
- Interfaith Youth Partnership
Project: “Improving our livelihoods through energy efficiency and a forestation project”
This six-month program will train leaders in faith communities, teachers and students in the care and maintenance of medicinal gardens, planting of trees to combat the effects of climate change, and the use of energy-efficient stoves and solar cookers to replace open fires and wood/charcoal stoves. A secondary goal of this project is to work with district environment officers to reinvigorate and enforce environmental policies that will ensure the long-term protection and care of the environment.
2. Green Prophet Cooperation Circle, Tel Aviv, Israel
Project: “The Bloggers’ Guide to Saving the Planet”
With chapters by leaders from the best environmental blogs around the world, Green Prophet will produce a Bloggers’ Guide to Saving the Planet. This work will integrate faith-based expertise from the Green Prophet environmental blog to access and mobilize Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and pagans, amongst other faiths. The guide, which will initially be published as an e-book and then in hard copy, will be used to train future activists in the Mideast, Asia and Africa.
3. Kuna Women Artisans (Muku) CC, Veracruz District, Panama
Project: “Training for the Creation of Family Orchards and Adaptation to Climate Change”
This overall project will focus on sustainable environmental management, climate change and deforestation. The Seed Grant will enable the Kuna Women Artisans CC to build awareness by training 30 community members in home gardening, green manure use, alternatives to burning garbage and proper accounting practices. This is part of an anticipated larger project that will plant 300 family orchards. Their holistic approach to raising awareness and training/education will benefit an estimated 200 additional family members, beyond those who are directly trained.
4. Pakistan Council for Social Welfare and Human Rights CC, Sialkot, Punjab, Pakistan
Project: “Environmental Education to Save the Earth”
Four hundred and fifty women in 15 vocational training schools in the Poonch District will receive training on growing home gardens. An additional 300 community activists and master trainers will receive general education about the environment (pollution, acid rain, climate change, destruction of rainforests/wild habitats, species extinctions, etc.). 100,000 food and tree seedlings will be distributed to 10,000 people. The group will use various creative forms of theatre, seminars and nature walks to convey their message.
5. Ranchi Peace Cooperation Circle, Jharkhand, India
Project: “Hariyali Tribal Movement to Save Nature”
This year-long program will take action against local mining companies that have been polluting the land and water supply in the rural area of Jharkhand, India, where poverty is at a high level. The project comes under the umbrella organization “Save the River.” Activities will include tree planting by children, protecting existing forests, cleaning the riverbed, and working with the local government to hold mining industries accountable for their destruction of the environment.
6. Trust Win (Women’s Interfaith Network) CC in collaboration with
Center for Hagar and Sarah
Project: “Forest of the Mothers Opening Planting Ceremony”
In January 2011, devastating fires destroyed a large section of the Carmel Forest in Northern Israel. A busload of prison services personnel were caught in the fire and died. Fifty women from these four groups will plant some 200 trees near the site to honor the fire victims and also interfaith leaders whose widows are part of group. There will a ceremonial planting with local and regional authorities, religious leaders, families of the victims, women interfaith leaders and school children.
7. Volunteering for Peace CC, West Bank, Palestine, in collaboration with
- Palestinian Peace Society CC
- Palestinian Youth for Peace CC
- Palestinian Women for Peace CC
- United for Palestine CC
Project: “Environmental Awareness for Palestinian Youth”
Volunteering for Peace CC will lead several awareness-raising seminars for young adults, aged18 to 28 years old, coming from each of these five Cooperation Circles located in the West Bank. Participants will include university and vocational school students, as well as students in their last year of high school. The seminars will present information, facilitate dialogue about local environmental issues and solutions, and foster interfaith cooperation among Muslim, Christian and Druze living in the conflict zone.
