August 2025 – Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia
Environmental Education Sierra Nevada: Empowering Rural Schools
Environmental education Sierra Nevada is gaining strength thanks to a new partnership between Women for Conservation and the Bodega Palestina Rural Educational Center. This initiative, launched in February 2025, aims to raise awareness and promote the protection of local biodiversity through hands-on learning experiences and community engagement in the heart of Colombia’s Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.
This agreement is part of our Conserving Species and Ecosystems program, which promotes environmentally sustainable actions through educational activities, interactive workshops, awareness-raising sessions, and practical actions that connect students and teachers with their surroundings.
Over the past few months, we’ve made progress implementing this partnership with key actions. We delivered 20 hiking kits (including binoculars) and 10 teacher kits with school materials and Caribbean bird guides.
As part of the practical activities, students helped build a composting bale to manage organic waste for use in school and home gardens. We also held workshops on recycling, clean-ups, and sustainable lifestyle habits.
The partnership includes training sessions on endemic, endangered, and migratory species in the Caribbean and the Sierra Nevada, and the use of citizen science platforms like eBird and iNaturalist for monitoring biodiversity.
To support sustainable livelihoods, we delivered 50 chickens to the school, reinforcing sustainable farming practices and food security.
Since 2024, our director Isabella Cortés has led multiple initiatives, including a community mural, an environmental storytelling contest, and family planning workshops focused on health and conservation.
Teachers and administrators highlighted how the partnership strengthens classroom learning with real-life, community-connected experiences. Students also participated in the Fiestas del Mar and visited the mobile classroom, the Conservation Chiva.
This agreement reaffirms our commitment to environmental education and the empowerment of youth in protecting natural resources. We hope this model can be replicated across Colombia.
