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GYBN

Our Work

Africa Youth Capacity Building Workshop.

Our African Youth Capacity Building Workshop in 2018

Our Current and Upcoming GYBN Malagasy Projects:

  • Co-organization of the Climate Diplomacy Week: Every year, the European Union’s office in Madagascar organizes the “Climate Diplomacy Week” to raise public awareness and engage them on climate change issues and climate negotiations. For 2019, the EU wants to promote and support the youth involvement and they called upon many youth organization in Madagascar to co-organize the event, including MYBN (October 2019)

  • Green Discovery, round 3:  We will organize a trip for thirty-three kids from a public primary school to discover Madagascar’s eastern tropical rainforest for the first time at a local community-managed protected area. We are open to companies who want to fulfill their societal and environmental responsibilities by sponsoring and accompanying pupils for the trip (on-going project)

  • Mini-seminar “Ecolo-warriors”:  A mini-seminar series that will become a monthly or quarterly event.

  • Youth Ambassadors for Protected Areas: While still in the negotiation stage with major conservation NGOs, this project will aim to send a group of five young people on an organized tour in each protected area that the NGOs are managing, so that they can see conservation “behind the scenes” with protected area managers and local communities. Back home, as young ambassadors, they will commit to communicate about these protected areas in different ways: blog articles, photos, short videos, and social media postings for 6 months on specific themes. MYBN’s volunteers will supervise and follow up on their commitment (dry season of 2020)

  • Biodiversity Toolkit: We want to design a complete toolkit, ready to use for anyone wanting to conduct environmental education on biodiversity in Madagascar for every educational level, ranging from infants to adults. It will contain coloring books, comic books, an alphabet primer book, several board games (on endemic species and natural resources management), tales and histories, physical games, and short informative videos (end of 2019) 

  • Establishment of our own tree nursery and permaculture site:  This project will be in cooperation with TAFO MIHAAVO (the national network of natural resources-managing local communities), who will provide us with species of endemic forest seeds and baby trees, allowing us to establish our own tree nursery in Antananarivo. We will then be able to train our members and other participants on how to grow trees native to Madagascar (August – September 2019, Antananarivo)

  • Trees Project, round 3:  Two of our members will share their permaculture knowledge and experiences to the involved volunteers as a continuation of our initial Trees Project, where we planted 100 trees of five endemic ornamental tree species in the yards of 10 public primary schools in Antananarivo (December 2019 – February 2020)

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  • Establishing 3 subnational chapters: To satisfy the high demand for participation from the people in other regions of Madagascar, and to start expanding the network nationally. We are already in contact with potential subnational chapter founders in the Vakinakaratra, Menabe, and Antsinanana regions (by mid-2020)

  • Malagasy youth consultation on post-2020 with “Malagasy youth’s pact for biodiversity” events:  A multiple event program in which we are raising awareness with young people on the biodiversity crisis, GYBN and MYBN’s missions and activities as youth advocates, the Aichi Targets, and the upcoming Global Biodiversity Framework that will be established post-2020. The final goal is the consultation with Malagasy youth on post-2020 (starting August 2019, Antananarivo)

Our Past Projects:

  • Online campaigns on endemic species and ocean protection:  These were online campaigns to raise awareness on an increasing number of activities where our volunteers created and shared messages and posters on our Facebook page to give an insight of the plastic pollution issue in Madagascar and information about endangered species endemic to Madagascar that are affected by the plastic pollution issue (over the last 6 months of 2017)

  • Motivational talks on volunteering:  Ms. Tsanta Gaëlle shared her story and experiences as a volunteer and founder of a famous volunteering association in order to motivate and inspire our members to become volunteers (September 2017, University of Antananarivo, School of Agronomy)

  • Waste Management mini-workshop:  Waste mismanagement is a big issue for Antananarivo, so our members ran a mini-workshop on waste management to educate our fellow colleagues (July 2017, University of Antananarivo, School of Agronomy)

  • Trees Project, round 1: With the support of Japan Youth Biodiversity Network and a local fertilizer company’s funds (Ho maintso ny tontolo), we planted 100 trees of five endemic ornamental tree species in the yards of ten public primary schools in the capital city and taught the pupils how to plant trees, how to take care of them and why is it important to plant trees (2018, Antananarivo)

  • Trees Project, round 2:  Similar to the first round, we planted 100 trees in the yards of ten other public primary schools in Antananarivo and delivered an environmental education session.  This time, for each school, we planted five endemic ornamental trees and five different fruit trees (January 2019 to February 2019, Antananarivo)

  • Green Discovery, round 1:  With the lovely support of the Japan Youth Biodiversity Network, we brought 33 kids from a public primary school to discover Madagascar’s eastern tropical rainforest for the first time at a local community-managed protected area. Then we provided them with an environmental education session where they had fun and learned about the protected area simultaneously (2018, Saha Maintsoanala Mandràka Park)

  • Biodiversity Month:  To raise public awareness of biodiversity, we ran a series of events and online mobilization, such as quiz games on our Facebook page, Green Discovery (round 2), Ecolo-Warrior seminar, and the organization of the official national celebration of IDB 2019 (May 2019)

  • Green Discovery, round 2 :  We brought 40 young townspeople to discover and connect with the forest environment in the Saha Maintsoanala Mandràka Park and its respective biodiversity, to get closer to the local community that is managing the protected area. They were able to learn how it is for local communities to manage a protected area and how effective conservation is when it is conducted in a bottom-up approach (4th May, 2019, Saha Maintsoanala Mandràka Park)

  • Mini-seminar “Ecolo-warriors”:  We brought together different influencers, activists, young scientists, and practitioners in the biodiversity field to share their experiences, inspire, motivate, and pave the way for our attendees to be active for biodiversity (11th May 2019, UN Information Centre in Antananarivo)

  • Board games on Malagasy native and endemic species:  We designed a board game for the public to discover and learn about the numerous endemic and native Malagasy species in a fun environment. This project is ongoing, and we have finished producing and testing board game prototypes for lemurs, vascular plants, orchids, frogs, and spiders this year (28th May 2019, Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development annex office in Ambatobe)

  • Organization of the national official celebration of IDB 2019 :  In collaboration with the Ministry, its technical and financial partners, and active youth associations (ENS Club Vintsy, Young Actives, Association Ank’Izy, MWR, ONG Fanambinantsoa), MYBN coordinated the official national celebration of the IDB 2019 for Madagascar (28th May 2019, Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development annex office in Ambatobe). We had a huge event where we had different thematic corners:

    • Lobby and Advocacy:  We conducted panel discussions to practice and show what it is like to advocate for biodiversity issues on the national and international levels.

    • Allies of Biodiversity:  We gathered different stakeholders acting for biodiversity, including members of the public sector, private sector, and civil society – so that the public can catch a glimpse of the member's different implications and activities.

    • Artists: During the whole month of May 2019, we organized an artistic biodiversity contest for young people from 14 - 25 years. The selected participants animated the IDB celebration day with slams, poetry, and tales. These pieces of art are going to be integrated in our future “Biodiversity Toolkit” (upon agreement with the artists). 

    • Game:  Featured different games such as quizzes (the famous Question Pour Un Champion), “5 Seconds Chrono”, puzzles, board games to entertain and teach the public on Madagascar’s biodiversity and its importance.

  • Part of the GYBN youth delegation at COP-14:  Two members of MYBN were among GYBN’s delegation to defend youth voices at COP-14 (November 2019, Egypt)

  • Part of the GYBN youth delegation at Africa Regional Consultation on Post-2020: Madagascar and South Africa represented GYBN at this regional consultation on post-2020. Youth delegates participated in consultation activities and were invited to share African youth’s position on the new upcoming global biodiversity framework (March 2019, African Union Headquarters – Addis Ababa)

Sponsors
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