Heirs of the Planet Program
Since Resnatur’s beginning, the Heirs participated in a variety of conformation meetings. But it is in the Popayán assembly (1992) when it was first considered to involve the children in the work and convictions of their parents in the reserves. This also made it necessary to identify the appropriate spaces where the whole family could meet around common objectives.
Resnatur establishes its Heirs of the Planet Program thinking about the values and the construction of a new culture in which the respect of all life forms is a daily coexistence principle. This assumes that the generational backup must adopt an ethical perspective from their experience, and that environmental and social aspects are variables for fair development. The program aims to provide an atmosphere of motivation for the conservation of the surroundings through a combination of qualification, communication, research and recreation.
It is an exercise to share people’s formation to confront the future based on a human scale development, in which diversity enriches and allows to include all.
The program is conformed by Local Heirs Groups (GLH) that call themselves ecological or environmentalist groups. Children and young people between the age of 6 and 26 are part of these groups, who come from both rural and urban areas. Their schooling level varies from no education at all up to some years of university studies, being also very diverse in its socioeconomic background.
The GLH are independent and of different nature, and assume a solid commitment of environmental work in their local and regional areas. Their activities, time and knowledge aim to love, defend and ensure an appropriate use of nature, being accompanied and supported by one or more Reserves and/or one or more Organizations linked to Resnatur.
Main Objective
To contribute to the consolidation of the Heirs of the Planet as a coherent environmental movement with Resnatur’s principles, that includes children and youth, and aims to influence the land management and to guarantee a generational backup within the organization and its proposals.
Specific Objectives
- To provide the conditions for the permanence of the GLH in its interest and influence areas.
- To contribute so that the Heirs participate in the environmental debate, through settings appropriate for youth and children.
- To support the Heir’s proposals within Resnatur’s different realms assuring their impact in all processes.
- To guarantee the conditions for the continuity of the Program generating belonging and appropriation feeling within Resnatur’s different realms.
The Heirs express themselves
“We are happy to know that it was a suitable decision to include in our lives’ project an active participation in the construction of an environmentalist culture and social weave to assure part of that future. Some of this future has turned into experience, foundation and history with magical meaning that reflects lives lived with intensity and commitment, united in the exchange of knowledge, action and passion, and enjoyed in the daily astonishment of a second of diversity and an eternal wisdom of love. It also cheers us up, because taking this path allowed us to develop a group of friends and hearts that we call Heirs of the Planet. Through this group we are part of the civil society that values and empowers the vital role of ample and democratic educational processes, in a country in which peace seems to be something that can be sold or be robbed, and in a world in which modern thinkers of development make us think that man is still the measurement of all things and that human happiness can buy the color of the wind, the nobleness in the butterflies’ flight, the ignorance of the beasts, the meat of the trees and peace of the paramo, the sky and the stars.”
Who are the Heirs of the Planet?
We are a group of children and young people, from the country and the city, who understood that taking care of nature and learning from it is one of our vital missions, developing our own learning strategy and creating different proposals for the benefit and development of our community. We wake up every day dreaming about a different country, with a world governed by a love culture, in which we understand that “the Earth that we live in is a loan that we received from our children, even if they are not born yet” and in which all manifestations of life is the only defined course that guides our destiny.
We are a generation that fights not to be the last one and to leave to the coming generations a suitable space for their activities and a place to look for the right answers to their needs. We want to offer to those who come after us, a planet where they can and want to live; this implies our commitment, because we are the present voices closest to the future generations to be born yet and still unable to express their preoccupations.
Organization
The Program includes the National Meeting, the National Committee, the national Heir’s spokesman and the regional groups (Rodales) that allow the decision making process and the programming of joint activities: projects for the Seedling Fund program (flora inventories, reforestation, organic orchards, groups strengthening, environmental education, ecotourism, birds biology); development of abilities through the educational process known as Mentors program; participation in the process of formation of characterizers.
The program includes more than 1000 children and young people within 31 Local Heirs Groups present in eight nodes, and organized in eight Rodales: Valley of the Sibundoy Putumayo, Mountain range of Nariño, Pacific Humid Forest of Nariño, Darién Chocoano, Cundinamarca-Boyaca-Santander, Orinoquia, Tolima, and Valley-Quindio-Caldas.
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