Atamai Siosiomaga

This project hopes to prepare our youth for environmental challenges. The project's aim was to provide Samoan youth with the skills and knowledge to be at the forefront of climate change mitigation and sustainability.

By educating, training, and doing practical things like carbon audits and tree planting, the project prepares Samoa's youth for climate change. It involves workshops with climate professionals, carbon audits in schools, and a tree planting event to offset emissions. The initiative seeks to empower youth to become changemakers and promote sustainable careers. Workshops were conducted in partnership with young professionals from various backgrounds. They brought diverse expertise, ranging from renewable energy to sustainable agriculture, policy development, law and fun to the workshops. They shared practical knowledge and real-world experiences, enabling participants to understand climate-related issues.

The project addressed the needs of raising awareness of alternative pathways into various climate professions via the Atamai workshops and introductory carbon audit exercises. The GSAH identified if needs were met by conducting a brief storytelling exercise for each student. This was to highlight some of the acquired knowledge gained throughout this school visit. Additionally, through student participation, the carbon audit exercise was learnt through a 'learning together’ process where the students engaged with each other to identify different appliances that use electricity, the energy consumption (this was estimated and simplified to make the calculations easier), and then finally determining the total number of trees to offset. A simple step-by-step simplified method to teach students the process, ensured that the students took away key concepts, reasoning, and knowledge to take back to their own homes, and indirectly teach others in their own community. This allowed the students to spread knowledge and create a ripple effect of understanding. Furthermore, it enabled the students to become more confident in their own learning abilities and gain a sense of pride in their accomplishments.