ELENA - Empowering Sustainability Makers

While researching, we found out that in the 43rd Macaulay lecture, climate change activists pointed out 3 pillars to this situation such as an environmental pillar, a social pillar and an economic pillar. So, focusing on the social pillar and particularly in girls education that is the main topic of our project, there have been studies that evidence the fact that, when girls are equipped with holistic skills, such as STEM education and critical thinking skills; and are empowered to exercise their rights and stand up for themselves, they are able to contribute towards innovative climate change solutions and adaptation strategies.

Moreover, Project Drawdown, which conducts an ongoing review and analysis of climate solutions (practices and technologies that can stem and begin to reduce the excess of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere), ranks Girls Education as the 6th most powerful solution for this issue because they can gain the skills and knowledge to respond, for example, to climate-related disasters or changing resource landscapes around them with innovative solutions. Thus, the contributions of educated girls to their communities increases a region's overall resilience to climate shocks. Finally, according to this same study, educating girls in STEM fields together with sexual education has the potential to reduce/sequester up to 85.42 CO2 equivalent gigatons. So that is the way our project relates to climate change and sustainability.