This Friday, April 22 is Earth Day! From the creation of Grain of Rice Project, we have made it essential to cultivate environmental stewardship. In fact, it is one of the 9 Key Principles as members of Fair Trade Federation: "Fair trade seeks to offer current generations the ability to meet their needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Members actively consider the implications of their decisions on the environment and promote the responsible stewardship of resources. Members reduce, reuse, reclaim, recycle, and regenerate materials wherever possible. They encourage environmentally sustainable practices throughout the entire trading chain."
Recycling and reusing has always been important to us. At our original site in Kenya, we worked in the largest slum in East Africa where trash pick-up was extremely limited, so we always made it a priority to try to repurpose materials. Now we are in a village that doesn't provide trash pick up and so the need to creatively reuse materials is imperative. We are proud that our artisan team produces little waste and that most of our scraps from sewing and other various pieces can be reused in new pieces. This also goes for our school. If you've been following us on social media, especially Instagram, you may have noticed all the materials we use for school products and experiments.
This Earth Day, we invite you to consider your own environmental impact in your everyday life. We have gathered several activities that are great for all ages. Some activities will require supervision and assistance for younger kiddos. Several of these activities our students participated in last month as a part of the curriculum. Some activities require a little bit of planning while a couple can be more spontaneous.
Make your own Bird Feeder this Earth Day (Minimal Prep Work)
Download Earth Day Activity Sheet (Flower Collage and Nature Scavenger Hunt) (Medium Prep Work and Spontaneous)
(Flower Collage)
Download Sheet for Bury Your Trash Experiment (Medium Prep Work)
We hope you enjoy these activities to enjoy this Earth Day or over the weekend! We also invite you to take a photo during your activities and tag @grainofriceproject to be featured on social media!
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This is the post that I have yearned to write the last few years but never really knew if the time would come. When I went to Kenya nearly 9 years ago, my pastor asked me if I wanted to do missions long term. My answer was a big fat NO! I wanted to travel…
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