I love charity days, today is all about GECKO – our China NGO and the second organisation we’ve worked with during this expedition (after Clean Air Network in HK).
In true environmentally sensitive style we walked several miles to the school where GECKO and Wheel2Wheel were scheduled to deliver critical education to Chinese 15 year olds. These kids will become not only the leaders of China, but will also exert global influence as the world’s largest economy within 20 years. The fact 200 million Chinese kids are graduating without any environmental education is terrifying and serves as a constant reminder of how urgent and pivotal GECKO’s work really is.
After Levina’s wonderful mandarin introduction of Wheel2Wheel to the 180 assembled students, I spoke breifly as did Mihela. Then the local Chinese GECKO team took off – delivering an energetic albeit rudementary lesson on environment 101. The session was 2 hours in length and continually engaged the students with multiple choice quiz questions to test their comprehension of the material. Clearly the information is getting through which is good news.
I left the school feeling charged, but realising the importance of getting GECKO’s program online so a more detailed curriculum can be delivered to a wider number of Chinese schools. Mihela spoke of the need for this sort of education of children to become a “global movement” otherwise the challenge of restoring our planet will become insurmountable. I totally agree and even though Wheel2Wheel’s support by producing a tv episode on GECKO’s work and raising money for the online portal is small in the scope of the issue, I am immensely proud of the work we are doing with GECKO.
The afternoon was spent on the Li River, banks lined with astonishing limestone peaks. The eco-tourism challenge for this increasingly popular destination for domestic and international visits is going to be the hottest topic in Yangshuo and Guilin for the next 20 years. In typical China-style they are rushing at the commercial opportunity with little or no regard for the impact such development is having on the surrounding environment – which ironically is the whole reason the tourists visit in the first place.