Finalist
Jane Goodall's Roots & Shoots
Established in 1991 by Dr. Jane Goodall and a group of Tanzanian students, Roots & Shoots (R&S) engages youth as stewards of their environment through service learning. Youth use best practices grounded in JGI's conservation programs in Africa including observation and community mapping to understand their environment and connect to local issues. Community mapping is place-based and can be done with high tech mapping tools or a simple pen and paper. Through this process, youth are empowered to act as change-makers in their communities and positively impact the issues they care about.
Judges Comment
“We awarded Roots & Shoots an honorable mention for their superlative service learning initiative. Through this program, young people all over the world go out into their towns and cities, identify environmental issues, and pursue solutions that help their own communities. This initiative gives micro-grants to support these efforts, empowering young people and demonstrating that their ideas are valuable. Judges applauded this investment in young people, whose ideas and aspirations are too often ignored by adults. Roots & Shoots, they pointed out, embraces young people’s enthusiasm, energy, and innovative ideas. Judges admired Roots & Shoots for its simple infrastructure as a global communications platform, which has been highly effective and resourceful in many contexts. This program is a model for adaptability across contexts and cultures – many E-STEM programs can learn from this example.”