OSCE Office helps launch environmental education programme for schoolchildren in Armenia

YEREVAN, 12 August 2004 - The OSCE Office in Yerevan launched today an environmental education programme for schoolchildren which will help increase environmental awareness and contribute to environmental education in Armenia.

The programme, called "We and our planet", addresses various issues ranging from the preservation of bio diversity, climate change to genetically healthy and sustainable agriculture and began at the new premises of the Public Environmental Information Centre (PEIC), also known as Aarhus Center in Yerevan.

"The OSCE Office considers environmental education of the young generation a high priority and of great importance for the civil society," said Jeannette Kloetzer, Economic and Environmental Officer in the OSCE Yerevan office. "It is our firm belief that by properly informing people we can better guarantee the protection of the environment".

The development of this programme was supported by the OSCE Office. The Ministry of Education as well as leading Armenian experts have also contributed to the programme which was developed with the help of the non-governmental organization Khaz.

A set of brochures and posters describing each topic will be distributed to students and schoolchildren together with information on the situation in Armenia and local and international ways to address environmental problems.

As a follow-up to the programme, members of Khaz and the Board of Experts of the PEIC will visit colleges and schools in Yerevan and other regions of the country and hold lessons on environmental issues. They will start in August by visiting children's summer camps.