For most of us, climate change seems remote and theoretical.
It’s a story happening in the news or in the future. It’s a story about emissions targets, global summits, faraway places. It’s a story about the end of the world. It’s a story of a problem so big nothing we could do on our own could ever make a difference.
But that’s not the story for children.
Nature is their world and they experience it up close.
The feel of wet grass on bare feet, of warm sands, cold seas. The sound of rain on rooftops. The joy of rolling down a grassy bank.
At the same time, the death of nature is real to children too. When they hear that the Amazon is burning or the glaciers are melting, they feel it inside.
So while world leaders sit around and talk, we’re working with children to take down-to-earth action.
A love story
This is the new story of climate change. It is a love story – the most important love story ever told. A story that’s happening everywhere, all at once...
In Cambodia, 12-year-old Ratana paddles for an hour across Asia’s largest freshwater lake to reach her floating school. There she learns about taking care of the environment during eco-lessons provided by Save the Children. She gets back out on the lake with a loudspeaker to spread the message to her community, inspiring them to prevent the pollution that is poisoning their fishing waters. Then she walks the talk by cleaning up the lake with her classmates using an innovative plastic-collecting device we’ve given them.
In Syria, 10-year-old Iman tends an astonishing layered garden her family built around their tent, sending the sweet scent of roses and basil across their refugee camp. We’ve provided Iman’s family with the basics like food and shelter, so they are free to get on with planting seeds for the future.
In Malawi, agile Esther shins up a tree near her village, the skin of hands and feet hardened by long hours of carefree clambering. Her eco-lessons at the school Save the Children supports have ignited her love of nature. Now she loves planting trees almost as much as she loves climbing them. She knows every tree she plants forms part of a barrier against the storms and floods that batter her village, and helps Save the Children create lasting change in her community.
In Sierra Leone, passionate conservationist Abdulaye will give you a guided tour of his coastal village – a village literally disappearing under the rising seas. With Save the Children’s support, he’s helping mobilise his whole community to plant mangroves to protect the village from the floodwaters – before it vanishes forever beneath the waves.
In the Solomon Islands, where the air is alive with the industrious buzz of honeybees, Save the Children is working with local experts to help families set up beekeeping businesses.
The bees pollinate mangrove trees, helping them grow and form a barrier against the storms and high tides that assail the islands. The mangroves are also incredible carbon sponges, helping in the global fight against climate change. And all the while, the bees produce sweet honey for farmers like Alison to sell. It’s a virtuous circle of lasting change.
In the arid mountains of Guatemala, irrepressible brothers Edison and Tomas make their mum Rebeca beam. They once went hungry, struggling to grow enough to eat in the country’s notorious Dry Corridor. Now they and farming families like them are growing plenty of nutritious food using the drought-resistant seeds and eco-friendly agricultural training Save the Children has given them – so much food, in fact, they’re supplying local schools too!
In Indonesia, 12-year-old Attika strokes and nuzzles her family’s horses in the fields she loves. But intense drought left those fields parched and brown, decimating crops and making water scarce. Save the Children has helped build a a solar-powered water system in Attika’s community, providing clean drinking water and irrigation for the crops they rely on for food. And we’re teaching farmers sustainable agricultural techniques, so they can grow food even in an increasingly extreme climate.
And as the UK’s coastlines are trashed and polluted, Katie and her classmates are on a beach clean-up in Margate organised by Save the Children.
Save the Children’s Change Makers – our growing group of young climate campaigners – are fighting for a fairer, greener future so children like these in the UK can enjoy the things we used to do as kids, like wade in rock pools and search for crabs in sea water without fear of falling sick.
Love in action
The driving force behind these stories of change is a love of nature. Children around the world are putting that love into action.
On its own, each action might be small, but like a pebble landing in a pond, it sends ripples out across communities and whole societies, generating change that will last for generations to come.
Will you join us?
Put your love of nature into action and build lasting change for children.
Your monthly donation could:
- Help us construct a solar-powered water system in another village like Attika’s In Indonesia – providing people with clean water for years to come
- Buy drought-resistant seeds for a farming family like Rebeca and her boys in Guatemala, so they can grow crops even when the rains fail
- Help a family set up a profitable beekeeping business like those in the Solomon Islands that restores natural ecosytems
- Help us plant carbon-absorbing trees alongside kids like Abdulaye in Sierra Leone that act as flood defences for communities on the frontline of the climate crisis
- Help train teachers to provide eco-lessons at the schools we support like Esther's in Malawi
- Buy a plastic-collection device like Ratana uses in Cambodia to help a community keep their fishing waters free of pollution for generations to come
Being part of the lasting change these children need to see is truly a privilege. Join us today.
