11 Oct 2021 Project to develop climate change curriculum in the Philippines

The Philippines has been identified as one of the top 10 countries most at risk from the effects of climate change, and yet millions of marginalized Filipinos who will be hit the hardest are not aware of it, according to the Center for Environmental Concerns (CEC), an NGO and WACC project partner in the Philippines.

To help address this challenge, WACC is supporting a CEC project that will develop a community-based curriculum centred on local and traditional knowledge in relation to climate change, as well as teaching aids and protocols for effective communication of climate disaster threats and impacts.

The project, Community-based Climate Change Educ-Action Training and Enrichment (CREATE), is also designed to explain the connection between climate change and the communities’ socio-economic and political situation, and to “empower them to use their collective strengths and traditional practices to adapt to and mitigate the impacts of climate disasters.”

“Grassroots communities in developing countries such as the Philippines are at the forefront of several climate and environmental justice struggles. There is an extraordinary amount of knowledge they can share with others, including traditional ecological knowledge, best practices around adaptation, and knowledge about community mobilization to tackle the climate crisis,”  said Lorenzo Vargas, WACC programme manager for Communication for Social Change. “In light of this, WACC is happy to partner with CEC to develop community-based climate justice curricula that will both mobilize local knowledge and help build the capacity of civil society organizations in the Philippines working on climate issues.”

In applying for the project, CEC notes that the “one in five Filipinos are considered extremely poor, rendering millions doubly vulnerable and exposed to climate disaster.” It adds that while climate change has a disproportionate impact among marginalized Filipinos, “its manifestations and impacts are not effectively communicated at and by the grassroots.”

The project envisions that “marginalized and vulnerable communities and sectors in the

Philippines become more resilient to climate change through community-led actions, and that their positive collective practices are recognized and appreciated.”

CEC says beneficiaries will include 20 representatives of national grassroots from farmers, urban poor, Indigenous peoples, and fisher folk sectors; indirect beneficiaries will include  400,000 members of these organization’s local community chapters nationwide.

ABOVE: Filipino farmer in flooded rice fields. Photo by Nonie Reyes/World Bank