From the beginning of 2020, The Westminster School, Dubai set on a special mission to be a sustainable carbon-neutral school. To achieve this goal they partnered with eduCcate Global and has already achieved the Bronze and Silver Award quicker than any school in the world. The Westminster School, Dubai is now the first and only ‘Centre of Excellence in Sustainability and Climate Change Learning’ in the Middle East and is also the largest school in the world to have achieved this status.

 

EduCcate Global is a Not-For Profit Organization that is a joint partner of UNITAR, which was launched in the United Kingdom. The school achieved Bronze Award in February, 2020. This was quickly followed by the Silver Award (June 2020) and they are now in a position to complete the Gold Award. Through its climate change work the school estimates that it has already saved over 200 trees and over 40,000 AED a year by reducing paper usage alone. These awards are a huge achievement for the school especially since the work took place remotely during the pandemic.

 

At TWS, Climate Change literacy and its impact was still important to us during the COVID – 19 lockdown period, and so teachers independently took the initiative to complete the Climate literacy course. The whole school team consisting of 292 teachers and leaders have successfully completed online eduCcate Global courses. Currently, each and every class at TWS has one Climate Literacy teacher who equips the school with the knowledge they need to transform learning to action and empower students, among whom there are Student Ambassadors and student volunteers. During these months, the focus remained on two fronts – skill development for social good and collective action for sustainable change.