A group of children gathered inside a hall, standing in a line in the form of an incomplete rectangle and their eyes looking at four colored dustbins.
Before the kindergarten teachers start giving the practical lesson, they place rubbish of different components in front of the dustbins; juice glasses, plastic plates, nylon bags and paper.
The lesson is about protecting the environment and health, by sorting waste. After providing the necessary explanations and information about color coding, the children are tested and asked to come to the middle of the hall and put each type of waste in its designated container.
The kindergarten is located in an old building in Kifri District of Sulaymaniyah Northern province. The children's eyes show their great enthusiasm for participating in this environmental test. The four containers, one yellow for metal waste, the second red for glass, the third green for plastic waste and the fourth blue for paper.
Environmental awareness lessons in the kindergarten are offered under the name of the “Enhancing Environmental Capacities” project, which is one of the initiatives of the Environmental Protection Team in Kifri that was launched three years ago.
After years of absence of financial support, the team was able to take practical steps this year to implement the project.
“In the first phase of the project, we spread environmental awareness among kindergarten teachers..., and in the second phase, we placed four colored dutbins," according to Anwar Abdel Aziz, head of the Environmental Protection Team in Kifri.
The kindergarten staff received training on the environment, and now teach lessons to the kids
Educating children to build an environmentally friendly generation is one of the methods that UNICEF constantly emphasizes, due to the risks and repercussions of climate change on this group, which the organization expects will lead to a decrease in the number of children in the world.
The Kifri project includes two main phases, the first is spreading environmental awareness among kindergarten teachers, and in turn, conveying information to children and from them to families. The second phase focuses on the practical aspect by applying color coding to sort waste.
"The training they received is transferred to children through daily lessons, and children are trained on how to sort waste by placing colored containers," Abdel Aziz said.
The project was launched in Kifri district, with 104 male and female teachers in six kindergartens who received environmental training.
The 10 permanent members of Kifri Environmental Protection Team, which launched the initiative, completes the tasks of the Environmental Protection Organization in the district, which stopped its activities due to administrative problems.
According to the project organizers, another goal of the initiative is to sell the waste sorted in kindergartens for recycling and producing other supplies, thus providing income for the kindergartens.
About 500 tons of waste are collected daily in the Garmiyan administration, without being sorted, but it is estimated that this waste contains large quantities of plastic. Most of the waste collected in Iraq is not treated, but is directly buried or burned, at a time when Iraq is ranked fifth among the countries most affected by climate change.
A green generation
Kifri kindergarten teachers received intensive training within the “Enhancing Environmental Capacities” project regarding the appropriate environment for children, educational instructions and procedures for kindergartens, and first aid.
Halala Saeed, the director of the Martyr Gulbahar kindergarten in Kifri, said, "At first, the kindergarten staff received training on the environment, and now we have started to implement what we learned in a practical way."
Halala believes that it is important to implement such initiatives in kindergartens and teach them how to sort waste by placing it in its special containers and benefit from waste by recycling it.
Gulbahar kindergarten includes 200 children, 135 of whom attend regularly, and the kindergarten is supervised by 15 teachers and six supervisors.
"The kindergarten staff teaches the children daily how to sort waste, and the sorting process is implemented with the participation of the children in a practical way."
Halala is very optimistic about the success of the project and says, "This information will remain in their minds when they grow up, and protecting the environment will become a culture for them, because children at this age are like blank sheets of paper. They receive information from teachers and apply it."
The project extends across the Kifri district center and has reached the Sarqala sub-district, and is constantly expanding.
Nawal Mohammed, director of the Sarqala kindergarten, says that she has been managing the kindergarten for three years and has never seen anything like this project. “These trainings are very important because they increase environmental awareness among teachers.”
Five teachers and one supervisor benefited from the information provided by the project.
“We have 89 children. What we learned in the trainings we apply in the kindergarten in the form of training and practical lessons for children. We use colored containers and teach children how to sort waste.”
Mohammed pointed out the need to accustom children at this age to protecting the environment and sorting waste.
“The materials that are sorted are reused, we sell them and they become a source of income for our kindergarten.”
She welcomes initiatives that serve the environment because their effects will appear in the future.
Wadi, Association for Crisis Assistance and Development Cooperation, previously allocated special boxes to collect plastic water bottles in Kifri schools to recycle them later and produce other supplies from them by local hands.
Wadi, a German-Iraqi Non-Governmental Organization NGO, has been supporting various projects to empower women and youth in the Middle East for more than 30 years.
“We are interested in expanding the project and are preparing for that, because our goal is to raise children who care about the environment in the future,” said Dara Ahmed, the Director General of Garmiyan Education.
He believes that the environmental awareness project in kindergartens has eased their burdens related to environmental issues, indicating that his directorate welcomes the implementation of the project in all kindergartens in the Garmiyan administration.
"We consider the projects implemented by some groups and organizations to care for the environment, especially in the education sector, a sacred duty," Ahmed added.
This type of project implemented by independent teams has its importance and impact on raising awareness among individuals
Sorting waste from its main sources is somewhat a new initiative in Iraq and according to the procedures approved by the United Nations, reusing and recycling solid and food waste is one of the ways to confront environmental pollution.
"This type of project implemented by independent teams has its importance and impact on raising awareness among individuals and raising children to care for the environment," according to Duraid Salim, Director of the Environment Department in Garmiyan, who expressed his full support for such initiatives and pointed out that his department has plans and programs related to how to provide assistance to make these initiatives successful.
A long-term educational journey
There are 29 kindergartens in the entire Garmiyan administration, which includes the districts of Kalar, Kifri and Darbandikhan. The “Enhancing Environmental Capacities” initiative aims to deliver awareness lessons to everyone.
The head of the environmental protection team in Kifri says that they have plans to implement the project in all kindergartens of Garmiyan, but it requires preparation and data collection.
"We are interested in expanding the project and we are preparing for that, because our goal is to raise children who care about the environment in the future," he explained.
The number of children registered in 29 kindergartens within the borders of Garmiyan administration is about 6,400 children.
The Director General of Garmiyan Education pledged to "do our utmost to provide assistance and sustain the project in other educational stages, so that children learn to love and protect the environment."
Ahmed pointed out that their plans include training and teaching children to take care of the environment in which they live, because the number of school teachers is constantly declining and the government stopped appointments for budget deficit.
A child in a kindergarten of Kifri district sorts waste according to the colors of the containers, Garmiyan, Late 2024. Ziryan Mohammed
The population of Garmiyan administration, affiliated with Sulaymaniyah province, is estimated at more than 343,000 people, according to the Garmiyan Statistics Directorate.
Ayad Mohammed, an environmental activist in Garmiyan, said that these initiatives provide a great service to the environment because they raise people’s awareness of the environment and will have positive repercussions in the future.
“If loving the environment becomes a culture, and polluting and harming the environment becomes shameful in society, then we can create a conscious society,” according to Mohammed.
The project awaits support
He also believes that it is necessary for the government to provide financial support for such initiatives that offers environmental lessons in kindergartens, especially in Garmiyan, which “suffers from deep environmental problems.”
If loving the environment becomes a culture, and polluting and harming the environment becomes shameful in society, then we can create a conscious society
“The support should not only be moral, but also financial, because most of the projects implemented by independent groups and individuals face financial problems and their sustainability is difficult,” Ayad added.
The head of the Environmental Protection Team in Kifri said, “One of the major challenges is the lack of financial support, which has made our work below the level we aspire to, so we are forced to collect donations and this process takes time.”
The Environmental Protection Team knocked on many doors asking for help, including the relevant government agencies.
“We knocked on the government’s door so that they would at least provide us with our requirements so that we can implement our environmental projects,” according to Abdel Aziz.
This story has been produced as part of expanding the role of women in covering environmental topics program, implemented by the (KirkukNow) Media Outlet with the support and funding of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany.
