Sr Saïdé Khairallah, shares her teaching community’s environmental efforts focusing on the youth in an effort to educate our future generation on the need to care for our common home and God’s creation.
Image source: Sr Saïdé KHAIRALLAH
It is important for us to take care of our school’s garden, an oasis surrounded by towers that block the view of the sea. It is located in the capital of Lebanon, Beirut, a city overrun with concrete buildings. As such, the teaching community here has made sustainable development a priority in order to protect our school and the entire planet.
After two years of lockdown and remote working, we have noticed a decrease in environmental awareness, but the Laudato Si’ Movement has boosted our ecological drive to act. The current national and international context encourages environmental change, triggering a change in our attitudes, our behavior, our actions and even our prayers for creation.
As head teacher of this school, together with the leaders and the whole teaching community, our environmental commitment has achieved the following:
- Creation of the Green Club whose members, teachers and students, have the role of facilitating the environmental policy within the school.
- Election of green class reps who manage environmental projects.
- Joining the “EFE3D”(french acronym) project: French School Abroad with a Sustainable Development Approach – Sustainable Development which aims to label the school as one that carries out environmentally friendly actions.
Image source: Sr Saïdé KHAIRALLAH
- A Eucharistic celebration during Laudato Si’ Week was organized in the school garden to praise and glorify the Lord, the creator of all his wonders who delights us with their beauty. A commitment to defend the cause of our planet and to teach others about our environmental policy. This marked the end of this first event.
- An interdisciplinary project carried out by the secondary education level during the 2021-2022 school year, with the final production taking place in September 2022. Guided by their teachers, students identified 63 species of plants existing in the school garden. For each species, they drew up an identity card outlining: scientific name, family type, place and life span, nature of the soil, and its benefits. The scientific names of the plants will be written on wooden boards, with a QR code that will allow us to read the name of the plant on our smartphones.
- Positioning of the plants’ identity cards: The event will be organized during the Season of Creation in the school garden, where we will match each plant with its name. The celebration will be attended by the secondary school students, their teachers, the Sisters and the Terre Liban Environmental Association.
Our environmental efforts aim to raise awareness among young people about the need to care for the earth by helping them to know and love God’s creatures.-Sr Saïdé KHAIRALLAHJoin Sr. Saïdé, Sr. Narguis, Arnaldo, Sr. Mirna and other Friends of the Sisters of Charity in celebrating the Season of Creation.Watch Sr. Saïdé’s interview (activate YouTube captions):
