The Costa Viva Project, by initiative of the Chair on Environment and Sustainable Development of the Faculty of Middle Education, of the University of Granma, achieves success in its environmental work in communities vulnerable to climate change in Manzanillo.
Founded in 2017, the project is based on promoting geographic education for students and teachers, to contribute to the resilience of the populations most affected by the loss of the coastline and the intensification of weather events that condition the survival of these communities.
Directed by the Doctor of Sciences Susel Alejandre Jiménez, it is made up of students from the Faculties of Middle and High Education and professors from the Biology-Geography Department of the Blas Roca College of Manzanillo.
For the present year, this environmental group consolidates the spread of a geographical culture in the communities near the coastal strip to change the current condition of the resident populations in these prioritized areas.
Environmental cleaning up works to collect non-biodegradable solid waste, exchanges with residents and training actions, are promoted each month by the project, to help lessen the effects of climate change.
Among the actions carried out by these groups are the reforestation and landscape restoration, educational talks in schools, workplaces and in the communities, in order to modify attitudes and lifestyles.
In this 2020, the project focuses its actions on the proliferation of circles of interest and scientific societies related to the environment and the fulfillment of the Sustainable Development Goals.
In this regard, two scientific societies have been created in labor entities where students of this project are located to carry out their pre-professional practice.
Such is the case of the Scientific Society “#OzonoVeintiuno” at the Celia Sánchez Manduley Pedagogical Center and at the Camilo Cienfuegos Military School, the so-called ‘Emerald Planet’, both aimed at developing actions for adaptation to climate change.
The “Costa Viva” project is an educational instrument for the pedagogical careers of the University of Granma, to increase the risk perception and awareness the population of the coastal communities of Manzanillo.