Duhok, Kurdistan (11th of December 2017) – International Mountain Day: Rwanga Foundation, 20 Students from the Zawita primary school and 10 Volunteers, together celebrated the International Mountain day to raise awareness on the importance of sustainable mountain development.
In order to educate students, Rwanga decided to celebrate the Mountain Day in the Zawita district. Throughout various activities, one of them to share the message by painting mountains and its nature on a big board and place it in their schools for all students to see and think about, the students were encouraged to protect the mountains and nature. One way of doing so was for the students to create their own protection campaigns, just like an environmental cleaning campaign, which was right away turned into action by hiking the mountain and cleaning it by picking trash. In learning about the nature and importance of protecting the mountains, the students understood how deep the mountains basically have an existential effect on all life on earth.
“In the past, these mountains were protecting us and our antecedents for a long time. Now it’s time for us and our duty to protect these mountains and keep our Kurdistan clean and beautiful.” said Afram Ablahad, Head of Duhok Office at the Rwanga Foundation.
Amazed and encouraged of what she experienced, Shayda, one of the students, said:” It’s the first time for me to hear about the mountain day and I am very happy to be here and to learn more about mountains and the many ways in protecting them. We should reveal and celebrate mountain day every year!”
The United Nations' (UN) International Mountain Day is an occasion to raise awareness of the people who live in mountainous regions and the role that these regions play in providing food, water, and recreation. The UN describes this annual event as followed:
International Mountain Day has its roots in 1992, when the adoption of Chapter 13 of Agenda 21 “Managing Fragile Ecosystems: Sustainable Mountain Development” at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development put a milestone in the history of mountain development. The increasing attention to the importance of mountains led the UN General Assembly to declare 2002 the UN International Year of Mountains. On this occasion, the UN General Assembly has designated 11 December, from 2003 onwards, as “International Mountain Day”.
