The Terai Arc Landscape Project (TAL) - Eco Clubs

Learning from an early age

In the TAL project, schools are involved in many activities - one of the most important being forming eco clubs. There are 150 eco clubs in the Terai.

Marisha Kumari Rana, 16, is a student in the ninth class at Shree Krishna Higher Secondary School. For the last 3 years, she has also been involved in her school's eco club.

"We publish a wall newsletter for conservation awareness. We collect the information for the newsletter from teachers and from other eco club members", she says. "We also have competitions and games related to conservation issues. In some other schools, their clubs also plant trees."

The clubs have no shortage of members, as participation in an eco club is compulsory for all the students in the school. In Marisha's case, all 800 students in the school are members of the eco club.

Learning with fun

In the whole Nepal, there are a 287 Eco Clubs, with a total of 80,000 children participating in them. The majority of these are in the area covered by the TAL project: this area has 164 Eco Clubs with a total of 70,000 children. Almost half of the members are girls.

Activities of Eco Clubs include planting trees, holding campaigns for cleaning up the environment and awareness-raising programs for members of local communities. In the Clubs, there are also quizzes and various competitions on essays, songs, paintings, speeches etc. related to conservation. Among the children, this is regarded as a way of learning with fun. Study tours are also conducted for the Eco Club members to enhance their knowledge and understanding on conservation.   

The Eco Clubs operate within the framework of schools. In the majority of participating schools, all the school students are members of the Eco Club, with 15 of the members forming the Executive Committee pf the Club. In some schools, only a few students are members of Eco Clubs.

Eco Clubs are led by schoolteachers: the Principal of the school is the Patron of the Eco Club, and one teacher, usually the one teaching Environment, Health and Population, is the Eco Teacher, having the main responsibility for guiding the Eco Club members.