This is a new project that we carry out at high schools in Leon, which include different...

Environmental education in Leon, Nicaragua; mid-year report

January – June 2012

SONATI is a non-profit environmental education organization which work to increase

knowledge, love and care for the natural world.

Activities we carried out betweenJanuary and June 2012:

• “Green school” project

• Diverse environmental activities for pre-school through

high school children

• Campaign against wild animal traffic

• Environmental leadership course – opened a new group

• Recycling projects

“Green School” projectThis is a new project that we carry out at high schools in

Leon, which include different environmental activities.

So far we focused on recycling projects inside the

schools, in the next months in addition to recycling project we will carry out also diverse activities about fauna & flora,

both in schools and at the outdoors.

Recycling projects inside schools“Green School” project

Activities for pre-school children

We offer FREE diverse activities for pre-school children where we focus on topics like plants,

animals and garbage.

Activities for school childrenWe offer FREE different activities about many

environmental topics; we carry out the activities in two main ways:

Activities in classroom Outdoor activities

We offer schools many outdoor activities at different places in Nicaragua, also away from Leon, so students can discover

the natural beauty of thier country!

School children from Leon observing Quetzals at the Nicaraguan highland cloud forest

Activities for school children

ENVIRONMENTALLEADERSHIP COURSE

This 7-year course is designed to educate future environmental leaders of Leon and Nicaragua .

At March 2012 we opened the second group of this course; actually 25 children from different schools participate in 2 weekly activities:

The participation in the course is FREE!

English classes Environmental classes

We carry out some of the activities of this course at the outdoors, for one or two days camping, where the children experience and practice

the environmental knowledge they acquire at classroom.

ENVIRONMENTALLEADERSHIP COURSE

Campaign against wild animal

traffic

Campaign against wild animals trafficThe campaign consist of lectures with pictures and videos about the consequences of this illegal trade. The message is simple:

Do not buy wild animals!

Solar bottle lamps

• Free light in the house during the day• Save money• Help the environment

We recently started to install solar lamps made of plastic bottles at the city of Leon and rural communities. These lamps have many advantages:

The lamps are very easy to made and to install, see our short video at

our youtube channel.

Construction of environmental mural made of recycled materials at the community school, together with volunteers from Gettysburg, USA.

In these 6 months we worked with both with the community children and adult public in different activities:

Conservation of the tropical dry forest:Los Madroños reserve & Santa Rosa de Los Pararles

community

Tourists at Los Madroños reserve, guided by a school student from Santa Rosa de Los Parrales community.

Conservation of the tropical dry forest:Los Madroños reserve & Santa Rosa de Los Pararles

community

4 solar ovens were made by community members and volunteers from Gettysburg, thanks to the help of Gettysburg-Leon brotherhood and Fuprosomuni.

Conservation of the tropical dry forest:Los Madroños reserve & Santa Rosa de Los Pararles

community

Children from the community with equipment donated by Maggie Moran, a voluteer from the USA who worked at Los Madroños reserve and fall in love with the children at the community.

Conservation of the tropical dry forest:Los Madroños reserve & Santa Rosa de Los Pararles

community

Adventure-in-nature course 160 youngsters, from different parts of Nicaragua, participated at

this course between January and February; climbing volcanoes and visiting other sites of natural beauty around Leon.

At the summit of San Cristobal volcano, Nicaragua’s highest volcano

New SONATI at Estelí!!!At July 2012 we start the work to establish a new SONATI site at the city of Estelí, in the highlands of northern Nicaragua, where we will carry out free environmental education

activities for the local children. Like in Leon, the environmental activities will be financed through hostel and tours that we will establish at the city.

Our activities in numbersParticipants in SONATI activities between January to June 2012

Total: 5539

Be part of the environmental change in Nicaragua! You can get involved and help us carry out FREE environmental

education activities in many different ways:

• Volunteer at SONATI• Spread the environmental message: don’t buy wild animals, don’t buy handicrafts made of animals.• Publication: spread the word about SONATI among friends traveling in Central America, write a review about your experience, join us at facebook and share SONATI videos on youtube.• Donations are always welcome.

Get involved

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We are thankful for many different people and organizations who help us to carry out all these activities.

First, we would like to say thanks for all our donors: all tourists who stay at our hostel and participate in our tours, and hence directly finance all these activities.Volunteers are doing an extremely important work at all of SONATI’s components: environmental education, hostel & tours.Finally we would like to thank for all our staff that works very hard, with lot of passion and love, to carry our all these activities.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Alexa Williams USAAli Bell EnglandAndrea Smith USABismark Soto NicaraguaCarolin Kern GermanyCarolina Lopez Ferloni ArgentineCiro Rendas PortugalEsequiel Woldmann ArgentineGabriel Aranda USAJonas Freist-Held GermanyLea Frauke GermanyLeon Kutzner GermanyLisa Batuski USAMatteo Dressler GermanyNiklas Gadelii SwedenOr Shoshani IsraelPeter Richards CanadaRobin Aguilar USASara Yañez SpainSusana Sunflower USATurner Savard USAYoel Shemesh Israel

Alicia Ortega NicaraguaAnnabelle Vinois BelgiumConie Toruño NicaraguaDave Mayer USAGregorio Bowles USAHamid Fazeli-Sinaki CanadaJohnny Roa USAKamran Akhtar USAKatie Garrett EnglandMaggie Moran USAMichael Garrett EnglandNitsan Scharf IsraelOrlando Chavez Esquivel NicaraguaRuairi Hylandd USATina Baum GermanyTito Espinoza NicaraguaVishal Kapadia England

SONATI Volunteers Particular persons

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSINSTITUTIONS & ORGANIZATIONS

Digital HopeFinca Ecológica San CarlosFUPROSOMUNIGIZ- programa weltwarts

Hermanamiento Gettysburg - LeónLoro TripsMARENA (Nicaragua’s Ministry of the Environment)MINED (Nicaragua’s Ministry of Education)PERMACYCLISTSQuetzaltrekkersTaller XuchialtTierra ToursUPSValue of volunteering

CONTACTS

SONATITel: +505-23114251

E-mail: sonati.leon@gmail.comWebsite: www.sonati.org