Background

Trocaire Malawi is working with Green Girls Platform on a STEM for Climate Action project that aims to provide 300 young people in Malawi aged 11 to 20 with the knowledge and hands-on skills needed to apply STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) to address climate challenges in Lilongwe. The project is promoting STEM and climate education, problem-solving skills, knowledge sharing, and managements for a period of one year. The project's primary goal is to integrate STEM into environmental education, allowing young people to understand the importance of using STEM to create climate solutions at a young age and aligning with global climate initiatives. The project has partnered with the ministry of education, ministry of climate change and natural resources, Youth Mappers and University Environmental Clubs. The emphasis is on collaborating and co-creating knowledge with local leaders, teachers, community-based organizations, and young people in rural Lilongwe to derive environmental solutions through geospatial skills.

Objectives and project justification

Young people, particularly girls and young women, are disproportionately vulnerable in Malawi, to climate change due to limited access to environmental education and awareness, particularly regarding the potential of STEM in climate action. While developed countries take bold steps to address climate change issues using STEM related approaches, Malawi lacks coordinated capacity to explore and utilize strategies that utilizes STEM, one of which being geospatial science. The project concentrates on educating 300 Young people from three marginalized communities in Lilongwe on how they can identify environmental challenges, work as teams, learn from others and fully utilize mapping skills to come up with sustainable climate solutions that work in their contexts.

Overall objective: To train 300 young people aged between 11-20 in 3 underserved communities in Lilongwe on STEM for climate action by December 2025.

Project Action Points:

1. STEM and Environmental Literacy: The project is integrating STEM and environmental concepts into project activities, curriculum materials, and hands-on experiments with students.

2. Implementation of 3 Youth-led climate action projects: The project is encouraging students to identify local environmental issues and design their own projects that are aided by geographic information tools to address these challenges and provide guidance and resources to support their project development, implementation, and evaluation.

3. Encourage teamwork and collaboration among students: By organizing group activities, workshops, and competitions where they work together to solve environmental problems. The project emphasizes the importance of collective effort and diverse perspectives in finding innovative climate solutions.

4. Establish 3 STEM for climate action hubs: Climate Education hubs have been established in all 3 communities with toolkits and documentation of the project for replication as well as knowledge sharing and management for the communities.

Implementation Strategy

1. STEM training sessions for students

The project begins with hands-on trainings in three areas of STEM and climate action, providing an overview of environmental conservation and climate change, as well as the role of young people in climate action. This is followed by lessons on technology and climate action led by Youth Mappers by teaching GIS and its integration with climate action, teaching youth how to develop solutions to climate change in Malawi.

1. Action Projects

Following the trainings together with youth mappers, environmental challenges are identified that are specific to their communities and students develop STEM-based solutions tailored to their local contexts, resulting in solutions that work in their contexts. These solutions are monitored and supported throughout the implementation of the action projects.

1. Knowledge Sharing and Management

Following the completion of the projects, each community conducts exchange visits to see what they have accomplished and to learn and share their experiences. The peer learning is aimed at enhancing sharing of their experiences, successful approaches, and challenges. Further areas of learning include a knowledge exchange workshop that is organized, where students discuss collective strategies for addressing Malawi's climate change issues in Lilongwe through mapping.

1. Establishment STEM for Climate Action hubs.

Lessons are documented by compiling toolkits for knowledge management and establish a climate change hub in each community to facilitate easy sharing of information and learning for youth who were not part of the project. The hubs support the sustainability of the project by continious engagement with YouthMappers and Environmental Clubs.