The beginning of this 21st century marked a change in the way we perceive our planet Earth. In past years, we took it - with its vast beauty and abundant resources - more or less for granted. Now, we are slowly coming to terms with the fact that the status quo simply isn’t good enough. The lifestyle we grew up with is quickly disappearing, and in its place humanity looks for a renewed sense of responsibility, awareness, and, most importantly, love towards our home, Earth. This will not, however, be a simple change. The inertia of a century marked by two industrial revolutions will keep a lot of people from making the changes we need to make.

Fortunately, a love for the environment can be planted - much like a seed, indeed - into the minds of young generations and nurtured along with their own growth into adulthood, when it will blossom into a powerful love, a desire to protect, and an incredible sense of loyalty to our habitat. This is not something that we can allow ourselves to ignore, nor is it an issue that we can dance around. The precarious nature of our environment may very well be the biggest threat to the world we have known, but thanks to the strength of the human spirit, it is something we will not face alone. We will face it together.

For this reason, Colegio Inglés and the CIverde committee (CI moms) will join efforts to instill in our community a culture of ecological awareness that goes beyond simply remembering to turn off the lights and avoiding long showers. Our goal is for our community to change the way we regard environmental problems. We intend to shift the perception of them as tangential issues, to a more productive mindset in which we think of the environment as part of our lives, and make conservation awareness a core ideal in our daily existence. This is not a one-school-year project; this is a culture, so it will start small but steadily gain prominence throughout many years to come.

The Character Education programs Habits of the Heart (N-3rd grades) and Habits of Mind (4th-9th grades) will also be associated with promoting an environmental culture, supported by conferences and experts in the area. During the present school year our main focus will concentrate on maintaining our school grounds clean because we are capable of keeping them clean, not because maintenance personnel clean up after us. We will also be recycling PET, paper, and aluminum as much as possible. We will monitor our energy consumption and will correctly dispose of batteries and cell phones. And this is just the beginning. Together we can move society into a healthier, cleaner tomorrow.

We have the responsibility to protect the environment for future generations, and we all must do our part. It doesn’t take great effort to make big changes. It just takes a lot of people making small changes every day. Why not start today?

Sincerely,

Alejandra Garza, M. Ed.
General Director