Through the sharing of knowledge and experience with traditional indigeounous communities, we will work with young people to harness the message and lessons from people who still live in touch with the environment, and whose traditional way of life is being directly affected by environmental changes.
Through the ‘inspiration of exploration’ we will inspire our younger generation to learn about the environment and take advantage of the great outdoors themselves. We hope to introduce children to a world which is becoming increasingly more remote to them, in a society becoming more dependent on technology, games and gadgets to occupy our young ones.
At a time when many difficult questions are being asked about core values of respect for one another, the family unit and the loss of community, we aim to learn from traditional communities how they live their lives and what core values they have passed down from generation to generation in order to survive and live in harmony with their environment.
Our starting project will be the Northern Lights Greenland Expedition, where we will be establishing links with the Inuit communities of Eastern Greenland.
Greenland Expedition
The Northern Lights Greenland Expedition will be a 3 phase project :
Phase 1 : During July and August 2009 the team kayaked between remote Inuit settlements of Eastern Greenland forging links with Scottish schools and delivering donated laptops to assist with linking children via joint projects.
Transportation between settlements was by the traditional mode of Inuit transport – the kayak - remaining carbon neutral.
Since returning to Scotland, the team has toured the Scottish schools, speaking to the children and teachers involved in the project. Training has been delivered to the teachers on how to participate further in the project through the secure online learning environment, http://www.thinkquest.org/en/. Through this medium the schools have been developing and participating in online projects exchanging ideas and media through projects covering areas of global warming, song, dance, and social cultural comparisons. There projects are paving the way for the next phase of the NorthernLights project.
Phase 2 : Chosen students from chosen schools will be selected to accompany the team back to Greenland to experience first hand the Inuit way of life. These children will learn about how climatic change is having a very real effect on the Inuit communities. They will return to the UK and France, and share their experiences with other children. By experiencing first hand, the differences in personal values and ways of life, and the effects of climatic change, we aim to make a sustained impact on the development of our younger generation.
Phase 3 : Selected Inuit children will be flown to Scotland, to live amongst us and learn our way of life. Comparisons will be made between cultures, and our guest pupils will have the opportunity to meet children here and see first hand, how the way in which we live our lives, is having a direct impact on their way of life.
Richard teaching kayaking skills to the children of Kulusuk school