Project - Peasant Youth Camps for Knowing Our Forests and Defending Climate Justice

Team name - AOP Forest Youth Collective

Part 1 Project description

Our project “Peasant Youth Camps for Knowing Our Forests and Defending Climate Justice”, comprises of youth camps for young children and youth in rural areas. The participants are children of farming families of a peasant movement, age 12-25, from provinces in the south and the lower northeast. The camps will be of 2 levels. The day camps in the villages are for young children focusing on knowledge about the forest ecosystem and the importance to the rural life and livelihood. Then a common camp will bring youth from provinces to meet and learn about the climate justice and the rural-urban youth groups’ solidarity for climate justice. We expect that from the project, we can reconnect our children and youth with their local ecosystem. They can gain love and understanding of their forests and natural resources. The youth groups enhance their capacity and leadership to continue the environmental education and climate justice advocacy. The forests will be safeguarded to solve the climate change crisis and to support the livelihood. Finally, the youth can live in rural areas and make the vibrant rural communities, strong rural economy, sustainable agriculture and fertile ecosystem. 

Part 2 Project progress

Our project started in May 2022. We spent the time in May and early June to introduce our project to the leaders in the target villages and to coordinate with the children and youth. The team also made the detailed programs for the day camps. During our preparation in May, we concluded that the environmental education in schools is too shallow and irrelevant to the reality. It fails to make children appreciate and to encourage them to protect nature. Even the children who live in the forest-dependent villages are disconnected from their nature by the school systems. Therefore, our project aims to provide joyful learning for them to understand the value of their forests and ecosystems for the life, livelihood and climate. From June-July, we organized the “Nature’s Classrooms” series of 1-day camps for 3 times in 3 provinces. These provinces are in the same Bantad Mountain Ranges in Southern region. The details are as follow: 

1. The Nature’s Classroom Camp No. 1 “Getting to know our forest”

1.1 Date: June 12, 2022

1.2 Venue: Nanfa Waterfall, Nayong District, Trang Province 

1.3 Participants: 20 persons, mostly age between 12-15. Only 2 persons are 20-25 years old.

1.4 Camp activities: The 1-day camp comprises of the following activities:

• “The Ice-Breaking Games”. This is for the children to know each other and to sharpen their teamworking skills.
• “The Tales from our Brave Ancestors”. The senior aunt from the village came to talk about the villages’ histories.
• “Tree Detectives”. The children sharpened their observation skills. They collectively observed a tree and identified the characters and benefits of that tree. They got to know not only the tree but its significance of the ecosystem.
• “What are our Forests are telling?”. The children learned to use their senses to reconnect to the forests through sound, smell and feeling of the forests.
• “Color of Nature”. The children collected 5 leaves from the different trees and put into the white paper. The activity guided the children to know biodiversity of their forest.
• “Art and Stone”. The children learned to make color from stones and leaves. They used the natural color to make paintings.

2. The Nature’s Classroom Camp No. 2 “Getting to know our native seeds”

2.1 Date: June 19, 2022

2.2 Venue: Khao Kaew Historic Trail, Sri Banpot District, Phattalung Province

2.3 Participants 15 persons, mostly age between 12-15. Only 3 persons are 20-25 years old.

2.4 Camp activities: The 1-day camp comprises of the following activities:

• “Playing with the Flying “Yang” Seeds”. The children collected the seeds of the nearby “yang” trees to play. The seeds have “wings” so they fly when tossing toward the sky. Then the children learn to sort the seeds and realized that there are 6 species of yang trees in their forest
• “Forest Walk”. The children were asked to make a short walk into the forests and collect leaves, seeds, seedlings or small creepers around the trees in the forest.
• “What are our Forests are telling?”. During the Forest Walk, the children took some time to reconnect with the nature with this activity.
• “Color of Nature”. Each participant brought 5 leaves from the Forest Walk to put into the white paper to enjoy the beautiful color from the forest.
• “Getting to Know our Native Seeds”. The senior leader came to give knowledge about the different types of seeds and trees in the forests. This grandpa also talked about the need to preserve the native seeds and protect them from seed grabbing. He emphasized that the biodiversity of the forests is good to regulate climate and mitigate climate change crisis.
• “Colors from Stones”. The children learned to make natural colors from stone and soil for painting.

3.  The Nature’s Classroom Camp No. 3 “Getting to know our creek”

3.1 Date: July 9, 2022

3.2 Venue: Huay Namsai Reservoir Creek, Cha-Uad District, Nakorn Sri Thammarat Province

3.3 Participants 22 persons, mostly age between 12-15. Only 2 persons are 20-25 years old.

3.4 Camp activities: The 1-day camp comprises of the following activities:

• “The Creek Detectives”. The staff team gave the instruction for the children to learn about the creek in their villages. Everyone got a handheld fishing net, a bucket and a handbook. They learned about the small animals and plants in the creeks, the velocity of the creek by using a flip-flop as indicator and quality of the creek from natural indicator.
• “Mapping our ecosystem”. The children learned to document the data of the creek’s ecosystem and used the data to draw a map that to showed location of the natural resources around the creeks.
• “Color of Nature”. All children brought 5 leaves from the trees they found around the creek and put them into the white paper. The colorful leaves also showed the richness of the forest. During the activity the camp staff gave the knowledge about different types of the leaves.
• The last activity was to play a game to strengthen friendship and teamworking.

Part 3. project plan forward

3.1 The action plan for the remaining period From August to October, we will organize the following activities:

• September (The first half) – The Nature’s Classroom Camp No. 4 (lower northeast region)
• September (The second half) – The Youth Camp.
• October – Evaluation and conclusion by the AOP Forest Youth Collective

3.2 Opportunity.

We observe several opportunities arising from the project that we can take in the near future, for example. Currently we create a new Facebook page (in Thai) as the avenue to connect with the children and the youth who join in our project. We can increase their engagement in the nature learning and activities in the future. Besides, the senior and other villagers are happy with our day camps. With the recognition, we can secure their cooperation and support. It also enables us to reach out to more children and youth. In the third camp, we received cooperation from the youth environmental activist from the Facebook page “what is this animal?” to lead the activity. We hope to enhance and expand the cooperation with other youth activists and environmental activists. 3.3 Lessons-learned. We learn to respect each other regardless of age. We need to encourage participation and power-sharing in all activities. Young people need freedom and the safe space to express their ideas and to reflect the challenges they face.