This is one NGO that's really doing it: working on the UN level, global South-South communication, integrating new technologies, and focusing on local, youth environmental action. ECI clearly envisions a very exciting and globally supporting future that we shoudl all strive for.
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While many non-profits share the goal of engaging youth in global environmental conservation, very few do so as directly and creatively as Earth Child Institute (ECI). ECI has a noble, relevant mission and enormous potential to have an even greater impact. It has a dedicated and resourceful team allowing ECI to particulate in many global environmental initiatives. Most important to me, ECI has provided numerous opportunities for NYU Environmental Conservation Education graduate students and alums to gain valuable experience with its many projects. I know ECI can continue to develop and achieve even greater things.
I work to engage children and youth in the "OLYMP-I-A" challenge, the practice of generating daily positive ideas and actions for green-living (and health and peace). The Earth Child Institute (ECI) has collaborated with the "OLYMP-I-A" to introduce the OLYMP-I-A challenge to children in Ghana and other countries. The collaboration is highlighted on ECI's new website at http://www.earthchildinstitute.org/the-olymp-i-a-challenge/. I am so impressed with the Earth Child Institute's leadership and staff and their openness to creative approaches, partnerships, and collaborations to empower children to make a better world. I have been fortunate to meet and partner with ECI and look forward to future joint endeavors. ECI is making a difference in children's lives and was instrumental in bringing the "power of one child" message to the recent Rio+20 conference in Brazil.
Earth Child Institute (ECI) is a leader and pioneer for environmental education and is dedicated to supporting children in fostering a relationship with nature and their local environment. ECI is an inspiring nonprofit because it is one of the global leaders engaging children around the world on issues of sustainability, environmental health and innovative ideas to protect and support their local resources and environmental systems.
In a time when concerns of “nature deficit disorder” and children’s general detachment from nature is prominent, I can’t think of anything more important than teaching children and youth to better care for their environment and empowering them with lifeskills that promote greater participation, voice and inner strength. Such objectives and skills are essential for the coming generation, especially at a time when the earth they are inheriting needs substantial protection and care. I believe children are natural environmental stewards and am grateful for organizations like ECI that provide environmental education and interactive and engaging activities that bring children outdoors and foster their natural inquisitive and curious nature.
Earth Child Institute INC has helped our team at Earth Child Institute Ghana to start working in rural schools and local communities and have assisted us with human resource and materials on climate change and WASH related activities which has helped us to organize training programs for both the pupils, teachers and local communities in the mfansiman district. Introduction of the Power of One Child Global Action Classroom by Earth Child Institute Inc has provided the kids in Ghana the opportunity to learn from kids in other countries via digitally and this has gone a long way to expose the kids about environmental practices in other countries and how they can improve their practices in Ghana.
Earth Child Institute Inc is an important partner for ECI Ghana to implement and create opportunitie for kids at basic and elementary schools in local communities to demonstrate ownership of processes and initiatives to address local environmental challenges. This has enabled and empowered the kids who have planted trees and watered them daily which has been dubbed ONE CHILD + ONE TREE to instill environmental friendly lifestyles among the youth as future leaders and thereby helping to reduce greenhouse gas emitting practices among Ghanaians.
With ECI Ghana, Earth Child Institute Inc helps to deliver global environmental benefits such as natural resource management, biodiversity conservation and environmental education. Almost all projects have capacity building components and has empowered the kids to be environmental ambassadors in their respective schools and local communities.
Earth Child Institute started out as a project at Global Education Associates, UNNGO, to focus on children's education and participation as global citizens. Donna Goodman has nurtured ECI into a great nonprofit that now has their own UN NGO status, a tribute to the global importance of their work and influence. ECI ensures children's leadership on global and local levels not as leaders for tomorrow but today's leaders. The organization is a model of leadership excellence, changing the thinking that children should not be taken seriously into empowering children to be heard at United Nations conferences and locally as key stake holders in finding solutions. Namaste!!! Ann
ECI does an outstanding work! I like especially their campaign THE POWER OF ONE CHILD + ONE TREE= A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE FOR ALL.
I love Earth Child's Institute's campaign to plant a tree for every child on earth. They have certificates you can purchase in honor of new babies - the perfect gift for kids with more than they need and the planet!
Earth Child Institute is pursuing a cause that ensure we live a sustainably today and tomorrow. the work of ECI inspires me because of their style, approach and understanding of what they do. I recommend that many other organisation should take a clue from ECI in order to enhance their impact and reach.
I have dedicated 2012 to raise money for Earth Child Institute. I am very impressed with the passion they have for their work. It has been a pleasure to work with the staff, and director Donna Goodman, who have been so supportive and keep me updated on where my donations are going and how my monies are already making a difference. Earth Child is very appreciative of my efforts and makes me feel like an important member of their team. I have the utmost respect for the important work Earth Child is doing for our planet and our children and look forward to a long relationship with this agency.
ECI brings together two issues that should receive more attention than they usually do by policymakers: children and the environment. Working with them, I have been able to meet amazing youth and children environmental advocates and help empower them to keep up their work, as well as bring environmental education to future leaders and advocates.
What i find most amazing about ECI is, its founders dedication to superb details of perfection and yet always with great flexibility for providing the most amazingly creative programming reaching everyone's needs. I am so thrilled to be associated with Donna Goodman and her team.
ECI was a strategic partner for the development of an interactive Guide on Climate Change to supporting the local actions of children and young people. ECI played a leading role in helping to facilitate the consultative process and the writing of the Guide. This NGO has the capacity to deliver results as it was demonstrated with the production of this important resource.
ECI recently supported the development of an impressive campaign in Latin America via the Cartoon Network, to inform children about environmental threats. Throughout the past year, I have learned about ECI's informed and unique methods of promoting the education of children about environmental threats and opportunities.
I have learned about Earth Child Institute (ECI) in the past year, and have been impressed with the approach and objectives of the organization because I truly believe that climate change and environmental interventions are the essence to sustainable social and economic development in the world we live in today, and tomorrow. In addition, Donna Goodman’s passion, commitment, and advocacy for promoting the climate change education WITH children are inspirational and at the same time very practical. She takes the partnerships that she establishes to another level by ensuring that the projects that are implemented engage and empower the children that are engaged in the activities. And I value this approach because it puts children empowerment in another frame, rather than those that are the future stakeholders, but are, as they should be, the current stakeholders!
I have worked with ECI over several years particularly around the climate education agenda and have found them , and particularly its Executive Director, Donna Goodman, extremely committed to helping increase awareness of climate change in schools and with young people in general. I work with a whole range of organisations and I can confidently say that ECI embodies what tackling climate change is really all about both in its clarity and commitment to its objectives and its approach to working in partnership with analagous organisations that can compliment and be complimented by the work of ECI.
Earth Child Institute (ECI) is an organization with an important mission. Associated with the United Nations Department of Public Information and accredited as an NGO observer to the UNFCCC, ECI works with governments, donors, the private sector and intergovernmental organizations to develop and facilitate innovative practical, values-based and cost-effective and participatory solutions across-sectors to meet the rights, needs and capacities of children as key stakeholders of the future.
The core focus of its work is related to climate change, water, children’s environmental health and education for sustainable development. The cornerstone campaign of Earth Child Institute is called 2.2 Billion: The Power of One Child + One Tree = A Sustainable Future for All which seeks to empower and mobilize the world’s 2.2 billion people under the age of 18 to reforest Mother Earth. The campaign is endorsed by UNEP’s Plant for the Planet, Billion Tree Campaign and UNICEF’s Unite for Climate initiative.
Executive director Donna Goodman is the highly creative, widely respected, and able force propelling ECI forth. Having known Donna for many years, it is a pleasure and privilege to now be collaborating with her on a jointly conceived initiative: Power of One Child - A Global Network Regenerating Mother Earth and its Children.
The Earth Child Institute promotes the essential, natural link between children and nature that can be utilized to empower kids and protect nature. As children are spending more time indoors, organizations, such as ECI, are becoming increasingly important in preserving the relationship between children and their natural environments. When children recognize the impact of the individual on earth and how each child is part of a fluid ecosystem, they are more likely to work to change environmental conditions. Emphasizing children as drivers of change in terms of sustainable development, the Earth Child Institute invests in empowering an influential future generation of environmentally conscious leaders. Earth Child Institute itself is driven by young leaders, such as Lyly in the position of Program Director. Nothing is more powerful to an organization looking to empower children than a young woman like Lyly demonstrating the impact of the individual on the environment and development. Partnerships with organizations such as UNICEF and Cartoon Network enlarges Earth Child Institute's reach and effectiveness, enabling more children and stake holders to benefit. Children are especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change as well as have distinct needs and rights that need to be met in order for a child to grow to be a healthy and influential adult. With this in mind, Earth Child Institute is an effective organization working to give a voice to two important elements of the earth that do are not often heard, children and the environment.
ECI is a hands-on, on the ground, heart-motivated NGO. Donna Goodman, founder and president, has years behind her working with UNICEF on projects involving the environment and children, prior to this she was a a successful entrepreneur. I have been on parallel event panels at the United Nations and know her to be inspired and inspiring. I met interns she is mentoring, and support ECI as a donor. My publisher (Red Wheel-Conari) for Like a Tree: How Trees, Women, and Tree People Can Save the Planet, will be planting a tree for every hardcover purchased--through one of ECI's innovative programs, girls and boys at a school in Togo will be doing this.
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I had the opportunity to meet Donna GOODMAN Director of Earth Child Institute last year 2010, when she came to Dapaong-TOGO with other donors to visit some realizations in some primary schools achieved with their financial support. These realizations were water-tanks, water closets, hands washing sets, very useful and appreciated by the beneficiaries.
In our discussion, I told Donna that I had a school and that with the students we planted trees. She was promptly interested and before leaving Dapaong, she gave me 8$ for the school. The environmental club in the school used the money to buy some seeds for our last year Tree Planting Campaign.
Back to the States, we kept exchanging information. The Earth Child Institute team wanted to know more about my school and our activities. We were glad to share our experience with them and to know also what they are doing. ECI was very interested and promised to give us 100$ for our 2010 Tree Planting Campaign. Finally, it’s 200$ we received from their Kids Helping Kids programme of the Power of One Child + One Tree = A Sustainable Future for All campaign. The money for our school was raised by a child’s birthday party in New York City.
We used the money to buy seeds, sacks to plant trees, different tools to work in our school garden. It was of a good help for us. Because of that, we had been able to plant, sell and also give more than 2500 trees. We also sent pictures of our planting activities for the children in New York to see how we’ve used their money.
This year again, ECI has decided to help our school associated with “Like A Tree: How Trees, Women and Tree People can Save the Planet”. We are sure it will work.
This will enable us to plant 7000 trees. Schools, teachers, school children, families, political authorities are associated to this project.
Also with the donation, our school can register more children whose parents can’t afford the school fees for their children. And this will help the school a lot.
It’s the first time since we have started our Tree Planting Campaign in 2007 that we receive a financial help. Even for the school, we receive no help from the government.
ECI works to reconnect children with nature, and develop a respect for the environment through a very hands-on approach to environmental education. Creating awareness among children is an essential step towards responsibile future generations and planetary sustainability. This is a very sincere and honorable initiative.
ECI is undertaking innovative and effective work to protect children from environment-related threats to their health and well-being of children, as well as tapping into the unique vision and energy that children can bring to the challenge of creating a more sustainable world. ECI’s activities are executed with passion and conviction by its Executive Director, Donna Goodman, and her team. Having worked with Donna since her time at UNICEF, I can vouch that ECI is a ‘great non-profit’, that continues to go from strength to strength!
I believe the Earth Child Institute can become a worldwide network for NGOs that are working in different countries to empower children and young people to care for our environment and live in harmony with the natural world. I am founder and Executive Director of ANIA (Association for Children and their Environment), in Peru (www.mundodeania.org), and would like very much to be part of a Network lead by Earth Child Institute.
Earth Child Institute is an important and highly respected NGO that works with the United Nations, schools, corporations, NGOs and individuals in providing excellent environmental education, training and advocacy. The idea for Earth Child came from a Japanese intern working for me at Global Education Associates. Donna loved the name and transformed the idea into an international non-profit organization, Earth Child Institute.
Her vision, scientific environmental scholarship, creativity and engagement with young people has made ECI well respected internationally, nationally and locally. ECI programs will help save the planet from continued destruction. Investing in ECI is the smartest thing funders can do.
ECI is an organization that understands of the value of supporting and educating children and youth on diverse and practical ways they can engage and take action on pressing environmental issues facing their communities and the world. Not only does ECI focus on youth, but also engages educators, community groups, parents, governments, the UN, etc – leaders who play a crucial role influencing youth and addressing environmental and sustainable development issues. Although a relatively small NGO, ECI has been able to connect with diverse communities and entities and has been involved in out various exciting initiatives. ECI has the potential to do so much more with additional funding and support!
I first met Donna Goodman and her impressive vitality in an UNESCO workshop on the Decade on Education for Sustainable Societies, in Bonn. For me, coming from Brazil and not knowing anyone around, she brought a feeling of identification at the first sight. I explained the Children's International Conference - Let's take care of the Planet and she talked about the Earth Child Institute, there was a total understanding between us and she promissed that we would work together. What can I do to help you and to participate at the Conference? -- she asked. Since that day Donna and the Earth Child Institute have interacted with us through Internet and telephone in order to develop a project together. As a consequence, she came to the Conference with a big suitcase full of mouse pads (made with recycled materials, sure) with a campaign for the children to "Take action Now for Taking Care of the Planet !", together.
Later on, we found out that we had a great love for the Amazon and a common friend who works in education, at Santaren, Pará. Both of us still dream to help building a Sustainable Center for Amazonian Teacher's Training. And when this people at the Earth Child Institute aims for something, they are perseverant and reach the purpose.
ECI and Donna Goodman are empowering and educating a new generation of environmental activists, the ones who have the greatest stake in preventing climate change and its consequences. What is so remarkable about them is that they work effectively at both the macro policy level and with kids themselves. I know of no other organization that can influence global negotiations while energizing local action, using a scientific, child-rights-based approach.
The Earth Child Institute has made and contributes to generate vital contributions in the field of sustainable development and moreover has a significant impact on youth participation in decision making. As a Youth Advisor to the Institute I am able to share ideas and perspectives, am in the position to suggest and question and am able to broaden my understanding of today's complex and interconnected issues, thereby giving to and learning from stakeholders in the field. In fact, through cooperation and collaboration with young people from diverse background and with various interests, the institute gradually forms young leaders and future change agents. There is no doubt, the Earth Child Institute has taken a central role in the field of sustainable development, has recognized the role of youth in this process and, with Rio+20 approaching, will strengthen its influence, further expand its efforts and reach out even farther. The Institute fully deserves wide spread support and acknowledgement and may easily be perceived as a cradle of hope in an era of tremendous challenges.
I am educator, currently concerned about the state of our environment and what kind of a future we are providing for our children. I came into relationship with ECI through the the work of Donna Goodman. She is a godsend in assisting me with developing plans for teaching children about the environment and their place in it.
I have been working for Earth Child Institute as an intern since January 2011 after meeting Donna Goodman at COP16 in Cancun. ECI is an organization that is working to better the lives of children throughout the world through environmental education and by providing resources to enable adults to help children who are impacted by climate change in their daily lives. At ECI, I am responsible for writing curriculum in the areas of: deforestation, recycling, energy, and water. The curriculum that I am writing is very hands-on and includes descriptions of activities that educate children about these issues using local examples. ECI is actively seeking new grants and partnerships which enable the organization to educate and help children who are most impacted by climate change.
Greetings:
I am Grandmother Whitedeer, Director of the Sisterhood of the Planetary Water Rites. We have the priveledge of having Donna Goodman of the Earth Child Institute within our Sisterhood. She is helping us develope a childs corner within our group for education of Waters and the powers of prayer and ceremonies to help heal and transform rhrough the guidance of Dr. Emoto.
I am hoping that my words will give credit to this most remarkable person and organization....Blessings, Grandmother Whitedeer www.waterblessings.org
I have known Earth Child Institute, Inc, through its founder Donna Goodman. Her vision of what is needed in the world for creating healthy children (our planet's future) is profound, while her down-to-earth solutions are practical and attainable. It has been an honor supporting her vision as a board member.
ECI is an NGO here to stay and make a difference to ordinary communities through the spontaneous yet conscious awareness of children and youth by instilling values of love and respect to the vital elements of earth ,water,air . ECI has grown exponentially by contributing to the pure intention of having a sustain livelihood for all on our beautiful planet Earth. I believe in" donor to the Power of 1 child + 1 Tree initiative,"
I believe in sustainable enviromental management which provides a nurturing community of support and ECI deserves my voluntary contribution as a board member.
I feel confident in my continued contribution to our global effort to heal climate change and environmental degradation. I encourage you to join ECI in this joy giving calling -together we can heal Mother Earth!!!
For years I have followed the inspiring progress of ECI in achieving its mission to motivate children, young people and the influential adults in their lives to get involved on many different levels of awareness, advocacy and action to address the global challenges of water scarcity, energy security, climate change and environmental degradation. Keeping their staff small and efficient, the organization has managed to bring about waves of change. Whether it be speaking at global events, working directly with communities in need, or collaborating with international organizations to effectuate policy change, ECI consistently impresses me with its capacity to influence and engage.
My personal experience with ECI has been as a partner, donor and client served. While working with UNICEF, ECI worked with us to create one of the first interactive games for Water, Water Alert!, to inform and engage young people to become active water advocates. As a mother, I worked with ECI to donate trees to a community in Togo as the "give away" for my son's 5th birthday. Correspondence with the community made an incredible connection for the children, and opened their eyes to the realities of others - and their power to make change. And as a donor to the Power of 1 child + 1 Tree initiative, I felt confident in my continued contribution to our global effort to stall climate change and environmental degradation.
I give ECI a rating of 5 stars.