WEEC 2022, Mohammed VI Foundation for Environmental Protection Carries the South’s Voice

Rabat – The Mohammed VI Foundation for Environmental Protection has carried the voice of the South and Africa at the 11th edition of the World Environmental Education Congress, held from 14 to 18 March 2022 in Prague, Czech Republic.

At the opening of this Congress, which is held every two years, the Foundation “has again carried the voice of the South, after the call of Marrakech that HRH Princess Lalla Hasnaa had launched at the closing ceremony of the WEEC 2013” and in which Her Royal Highness urged developed countries to strengthen the links and assistance provided to the South to bring environmental education, an essential pillar to fight against climate change, said the Foundation in a statement.

Almost ten years later, this call needs to be strengthened and deepened to the height of the stakes, the statement added, noting that this is why the Foundation has launched with its partners in 2019 the African Youth Climate Hub (AYCH).

This platform whose objective is to “mobilize African youth for the climate, give them the means to respond to it and help them take the initiative and become stakeholders in this challenge”.

The importance of these climate issues and environmental education was recalled by the presence at the opening of the President of the Senate of the Czech Republic, Miloš Vystrčil and the Minister of the Environment of the Czech Republic, Anna Hubáčková.

Thus, many top academics came from all over the world to support the development of Environmental Education and consolidate an international dynamic. The theme of the year was “building bridges”.

Strong of its commitment, the Foundation took a consistent part in the WEEC 2022 with four interventions around the environmental education programs, including the theme of the global institutional approach around the school, highlighting the Moroccan model “Eco-schools” and the good practices of the program “Young Reporters for the Environment”, a solution-oriented environmental journalism contest.

The Foundation also referred to the International Schools experience of UNESCO, which aims to integrate the environment and the 17 goals of sustainable development of the UN in the school curricula of all countries in the world, a project in which Morocco is a pilot country.

In addition to the two above-mentioned interventions, the Foundation presented the African Green Universities and Youth Education Network, supported by the UN Environment, and which proposes the same objectives of integration of the environment in the curricula, but for higher education, a program launched by the Foundation in 2021.

In its fourth intervention, the Foundation addressed the theme of the ocean, highlighting the operation “b7ablapastic”, the awareness and capacity building actions as well as the educational tools developed, thus contributing to the emergence of an informed citizenship, committed and responsible for the future of the oceans.

With the support of the Ministry of Education, the Foundation sent three young winners of the Young Reporters for the Environment Contest, aged 16 to 18, to Prague to participate in the YEEC, the youth congress organized in conjunction with the official WEEC.