The inspirational UAE Awards with more members than ever!

Posted on March 3rd, 2018.

This year’s Roots & Shoots awards took place in January at the prestigious Park Hyatt, Abu Dhabi on Sadiyaat Island. It welcomed students and community members from across the UAE to celebrate the programme and the projects and to launch the exciting Climate Force Challenge, in partnership with 2041.

The passionate and very inspiring schools that attended this year were:
Al Raha International School
Rawafed Private School
Home School group, Abu Dhabi
Emirates Private School
Sheikh Zayed Private Academy
Home school group, Dubai
St Joseph’s School
Private International English School
Gems Metropole School
Al Bashair Private School
Al Talee’ah School
Al Bateen Scientific Private School
Bangladesh Islamia Private School

The programme, sponsored by the Environment Agency, Abu Dhabi, welcomed students from 12 different schools including home school groups who came along to present their inspiring projects; to celebrate their hard work over the last year; to meet the one and only Dr Jane Goodall and to pledge their commitment to the Climate Force Challenge!
The day started with Dr Jane and invited guests viewing the fantastic school displays, followed by the official launch of the Climate force challenge where EAD the staff named as Team Zayed, spoke about their upcoming trip to Antarctica.

The schools presented their work and then went to enjoy the turtle challenge with conservationist Arabella Willing as well as a basket weaving and fire making workshop with Mike, who spoke to the students about plastic waste and made a shower curtain out of all of the events’ leftover waste.

There was also an exclusive exhibition of Rahul & Rohan Raju’s environmental artwork.

Dr Jane Goodall gave the audience an inspirational talk. By sharing her personal story and other anecdotes, she empowered all to make a difference.

We were most excited that the Awards were also the platform for launching The Climate Force Challenge that aims to encourage students and members of the community to re-think their lifestyles and commit to being more eco-friendly. As part of this launch, three members of EAD staff, Rashed, Winston and Mariam, travelled to Antarctica for 12 days with Sir Robert Swan.

“This year’s awards were particularly inspiring with the launch of The Climate Force Challenge. Our members are joining forces with 2041 to help Sir Robert Swan and his team at Antarctica to reduce carbon emissions by 326k tons in the next seven years. We have a big job to do but I’m confident, by seeing the commitment and resoucefullness in the room today, that we can achive it.” Tara Golshan, Executive Director.

We invite you all to join the challenge. Please visit https://janegoodall.ae/join-the-climate-force-challenge/for more information.