Sustainable Initiatives
Every year GEMS Education organises a host of sustainability-related initiatives across our network of schools. GEMS Global Ambassadors’ Society (GGA) is a global collaborative community founded in 2021. It involves student and teacher ambassadors from 50 schools across 15 countries, with a large number of participating schools from the GEMS Education network, along with other schools in India, USA, Kuwait, Australia, and elsewhere.
GGA’s core mission is to spread awareness, take concerted action, and provide innovative solutions that contribute toward achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) by 2030. It is a grassroots effort to transform the world. The movement aims to empower student agency towards the SDGs through a wide range of collaborative community projects in partnership with the twinning schools locally and internationally.
Individual School Initiatives
As we embark on a journey towards delivering social impact, we invite you to explore our interactive map, which offers an opportunity to navigate through GEMS schools and discover the various initiatives that are taking place.
SEE Change
SEE stands for social, economic and environmental change. The word SEE represents the three pillars of Sustainability. WIS have a group of SEE Change students who are taking action to make the school and wider community more sustainable.
They taught the students a lesson to introduce the term ‘Nurdle’. Nurdles are the building blocks of all our plastic products. They are transported around the world as cargo on ships. Often the cargo spills resulting in the nurdles ending up in the ocean and then littering our beaches.
Plogging
Plogging is an organised activity that started in Sweden in 2016 and which has gained momentum globally to address growing concern around plastic pollution. Plogging stems from a combination of two Swedish verbs, plocka upp (pick up) and jogga (jog), giving the new Swedish verb plogga. As a workout, it provides variation in body movements by adding bending, squatting, and stretching to the main act of cleaning public spaces.
Walk for Water
Globally, about 1.7 billion people lack access to basic sanitation services, and 771 million people lack access to safe drinking water. The absence of these necessities is not only inconvenient — it is lethal. Every day, women and girls spend 200 million hours walking to collect water for their families. That’s 8.3 million days. More than 22,800 years.
Inspired by the story of Violet, a girl from Zambia, GEMS recreated a unique learning experience for all its stakeholders and the local community by organising the Walk for Water campaign.
Sustainable Recipes
The world’s food system is responsible for about a quarter of the planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) that humans generate each year. The UAE imports approximately 87 per cent of its total food supply – but aquaculture and hydroponic farming could help build a more sustainable future, all while facilitating fresher, better-tasting dishes.
Students from GEMS schools work collaboratively to develop GHGE-reduced, nutritionally adequate, and affordable recipes that not only deliver on taste but also have a sustainability edge. This selection of recipes is designed to excite and inspire as they have a low carbon footprint and enable a culture of mindful eating.
Mr Angus Mackay - Director of Division for Planet
STREAMability
The GEMS Global Ambassadors’ Programme has under its umbrella a unique initiative called STREAMability, which aims to catalyse independent learning, hands-on innovation, and collaborative leadership, and create a restorative mindset towards a research-driven sustainable future. Teams of students with varying cognitive abilities work together to find imaginative and innovative solutions to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The objectives of STREAMability are:
- Inclusion - To mobilise and provide an opportunity for pre-adolescents to collaborate in an inclusive environment
- Research - – To introduce students to an elementary view of research and appreciate its importance in the process of independent learning
- Collaboration- To provide a collaborative platform for students to present without the anxieties associated with competition
- Innovation – To embed innovation skills in students by building future fluencies through STREAM-embedded learning
Climate Diaries
A collection of stories written by children aged 11 to 15, the Climate Diaries are a unique offering of thoughts and ideas to create more sustainable societies. Students and staff from GEMS schools collaborated with young minds across schools in the UAE, India, Australia, and the UK to create and publish a compilation of climate stories written by children for children around the world.
The Climate Diaries unfold student reflections, illustrations, and thoughts on the importance of climate literacy and climate actions as we strive to achieve the goal of a sustainable future. The narratives based in different contexts and countries around the world offer a kaleidoscopic view of the environment and the challenges it faces.
More To Explore
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At GEMS Education, climate literacy is not only well-embedded in our curricula, but also an integral part of them. We pride ourselves on having a United Nations-Accredited Climate Change Teacher in every classroom, thus making GEMS the world’s first certified climate change teaching-learning educational group.
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We attend and organise a number of sustainability events each year. These include local and international conferences and events; all helping to spread awareness and assist in combatting climate change.
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Close to two thirds of young people feel that not enough is being done to combat climate change, one in two lack confidence that the world will be able to stop climate change, and less than half feel a sense of optimism about the future.
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