Written by Abigail Chifusa, Global Schools Project Officer.
Environmental awareness is developed at school but can also start in a family setup. In Turkey, a mother is often a role model in the household as she manages most of the household activities, such as controlling water and electrical energy consumption in the house and recycling waste. In this sense, the Kayapınar Girls Anatolian Imam Hatip High School students, a member of the Global Schools Program (GSP) Network, and their teacher, Ferda Salik, regarded maternal education as of great importance.
Salik and her students raised social awareness activities for a sustainable living. With the reference to Bahar Özay, United Nations (UN) SDSN Turkey coordinator, “my school became a member of the Global Schools network, we are proud and happy to share our work with them.”
According to Kayapınar Girls Anatolian Imam Hatip High School students’ research, women are the most affected by climate change and it is the same women who want to get an education the most. For the first time in Turkey, mothers were given climate change and sustainable living awareness training and developed a mobile software to raise awareness on climate change.
Due to their success, the entire high school was invited to Turkey's biggest technology festival where it received a national award in the competition organized by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey.
Additionally, with the support of the local municipality, the school provided voluntary training to mothers and women in schools and institutions in order to prioritize the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through their work.
From the summary of Kayapınar Girls Anatolian Imam Hatip High School's award-winning research project, Ms. Salik and her students believe that all women in the world must receive training on climate change awareness and sustainable living because individual and social awareness against climate change is created.
The school has reduced the issue of combating climate change and one of the most important problems of this age to the smallest unit of society– family.
Furthermore, the Kayapınar Girls Anatolian Imam Hatip High School award-winning project is an exemplary work where 240 mothers were reached through eTwinning, which was included in the training of the Environmentally Friendly Mothers Program (ÇEDAP), that was developed considering cultural values.
Awareness and energy consumption habits were compared before and after the program by applying 8-week face-to-face and online training to the participants by volunteer academicians.
A single group pre-test post-test experimental design without a control group was used. Data was analyzed with SPSS and MS Excel programs. The findings obtained in the study, which included one-to-one interviews with academicians who are experts in their fields, were evaluated together; it was seen that the awareness of mothers on climate change and sustainability was not at a sufficient level. After the ÇEDAP training, the mothers’ understanding changed positively. 98.6% of the participants stated that these training sessions are necessary.
Below are some of the findings from the scientific research:
As a project product, the school has developed an ergonomic mobile software called Energy Diet, which aims to increase mothers' equal opportunities in education, easy access to information, conscious energy consumption, and awareness. It is expected to raise awareness about the importance of the project that was developed as well as provide training to mothers on climate change and guide the authorities in determining new policies and strategies to be developed.
The short film featuring mothers, who received great acclaim on social media and participated in the training provided by Kayapınar Girls Anatolian Imam Hatip High School to create awareness on social media, is now available.
A summary of the school’s project is also available.
The mobile software called Energy Diet, which was developed by the school is available for users with an android system.
The school was also featured in several national news:
- 240 mothers saved 480 tons of water with the training they received – Youtube
- 240 mothers saved 480 tons of water with the training they received – Website
- News about the project on TRT
