WNPS YOUTH WING
Inspiring the next generation of conservation heroes
The status of wildlife in Sri Lanka has been a concern for the past few years due to matters such as the human-elephant conflict and the overall threats to flora and fauna. Since activities such as poaching and snaring are on the rise especially in agriculture-dominated areas the lives of elephants, wild boars and leopards have faced alarming threats. In an attempt to educate the youth on the importance of conservation, the Wildlife and Nature Protection Society (WNPS)
– the third oldest non-governmental organisation of its kind in the world launched its Youth Wing back in 2017.
“At 24 years old the WNPS recognises that the success of conservation is highly dependent upon the aspirations of the youth of Sri Lanka,” said Zaineb Akbarally, General Committee member of WNPS and Committee member of the Youth Wing in an interview with Daily Mirror Life. “Therefore, with this in mind the Youth Wing of the organisation was established at the end of 2017, with a goal to inspire, engage and educate school children all across the island on the importance of protecting the wild places and its habitants of our island. The WNPS Youth Wing has run a series of interactive programmes with 18 schools since the beginning of 2018 with the core objective of the school programme having been to communicate and raise awareness amongst the children on environmental and conservation issues. We have achieved this by having informative talks at schools, taking the children to visit the national parks so that they can firsthand experience the beauty and value of Sri Lanka’s protected areas and we culminated the years activities with an inter-school poster competition.”
The posters were on display at the Lionel Wendt Art Gallery recently. Several outstation schools also participated in the poster competition and they got an opportunity to visit Colombo the day before and go on a city round. They visited the National Museum and even went on a night safari at the Dehiwela Zoo. Hence we spoke to several schools in Colombo and outstation who are actively involved with the activities of the Youth Wing :