Leaping Boundaries and Climate Tracker: South Asia came together for an initiative to build awareness about climate change and journalistic capacity of 12-15 year old girls in Madinatul Ulum Women's Kamil madrasah. Climate Tracker is the world's largest network of youth journalists focusing on climate change, environment and sustainable development issues. Leaping Boundaries is the only project of it's kind that aims to increase visibility of girls aged 12-15 studying in madrasahs through building their capacity and linking them to platforms where they are typically underrepresented. Themed around World Environment Day, this session informed the girls about the basics of climate change and tips and tricks for writing articles. The aim was to foster understanding, concern and drive among the students of Madinatul Ulum Women's Kamil Madrasah about climate change as well as to encourage them and build their capacity to write articles. Some of the write-ups that were produced by the girls are below. The original work was in Bangla and was translated to English by members of Leaping Boundaries. Tree Plantation
Name: Sabikun Nahar
Grade-7
There are so many benefits we get from trees. Trees give us oxygen and shade. In our country, we are regularly cutting down trees and as a result there is an increase in the carbon dioxide in the air and we are facing many difficulties. When I was a small girl, I went to live with my grand-parents for a year. I used to plant many trees around our house because I loved planting trees. As I was a little girl, I didn’t know much about tree plantation but I would plant trees whenever I got a chance. When my grandfather went to the field, he would take me with him and I would plant fruit trees as well. When I left the village and came to Dhaka the trees hadn’t grown yet but when I went back to visit after a year, I saw that some of the trees have really grown. When I was in Dhaka, I learned a lot about planting trees and so I moved my trees from the field and planted them around the house. Whenever I visit, I water my trees and take care of them because these were my trees; trees that I planted with my own hands. And when I found out about the benefits of trees, from then onwards, I have never let my dad cut down a tree. I hope that when I grow up, I will have many trees planted around my house because I have been planting trees when I was a little girl and I will plant trees in the future and I will ask others to do so as well.