Our Own English High School, Boys, Sharjah

A Small Change, Big Impact

We are delighted to share a blog written by student Adithya, from Our Own English High School, Boys, Sharjah, who is part of a team delivering a Global Goals project for the 2021-22 GSL Global Goals Competition.

Their project is among over 957 social action projects currently running as part of the GSL movement and we are excited to be supporting them to design and lead positive social change in their community!

GSL Global Goals Competition made me a true leader to take initiatives to save mother Earth

Project Summary

We have developed our project to tackle the SDG goals which are #3 Good Health and Wellbeing and #13 Climate Action. We have done many action to tackle these SDG goals like organic farming, awareness campaigns, beach and mangrove clean ups, recycling campaigns ,short films, art works, surveys and a sustainable garden in our school. There were a lot of needs in local community and the main needs we have identified are the need of healthy organic food free of pesticides and lack of awareness among people about different diseases.

In the present world diseases like cancer and other life style diseases are more common due to climate change and lack of natural healthy food. This has inspired us to take up this project which aims to fight against climate change. Our project aim to tackle these situations and to protect environment from climate change and many environmental issues like pollution, global warming, deforestation etc. We want all the people in this world to have good health and well being so that our mother Earth can survive more.

The Journey

We are a group of nature lovers. We have developed a lot of eco friendly skills like how to do organic farming by our own to protect the environment. By participating in GSL Global Goals Competition , we could know more about types of soils , the different types of fertilizers, agricultural practices like preparation of soil, selection of seeds and sowing, irrigation, harvesting, threshing, winnowing, storage etc. We also understand how to grow a sustainable garden filled with variety of fruits, leaves, veggies in a desert environment which is in our school rather than in a monsoon climate. I have also learned that I am capable to do variety of actions to protect our environment from climate change and for good and better health and well being of people and developed my leadership skills.

The biggest challenge we faced was the need of natural crops free from pests rather than artificial crops filled with fertilizers. Due to artificial crops people are infected with many diseases like stomach infections and people are at a razor edge in their life. This is our biggest challenge and we strive hard to overcome this. Also it was very hard to spread these awareness to a huge audience in this pandemic situation. But we overcame all these through our smart work.

The Next Chapter

I would surely recommend people of our age to also participate in these activities as Earth is our mother and we all have the responsibility to protect our Earth. I would recommend them to do afforestation, make a small sustainable organic farm in their home and mostly use the veggies and fruits they get from it, participate in many awareness campaigns like beach clean ups, recycling campaigns, climate action campaigns etc.

Like this if everyone does there small actions from their side we can surely recover Earth and live longer with good health and well being also stop climate change. They can have many awareness campaigns , be part of eco friendly organisations , read and understand more about the current environmental issues, organise eco-friendly activities etc.