An awareness programme on climate change for Delhi's schoolchildren and a web platform – GreenSpaces Ideas was launched on Thursday on the occasion of 40th Earth Day.
 
The GreenSpaces ideas is an online platform, where students, their parents and teachers will be asked to pose their green ideas. The project aims to make all schoolchildren in the city aware about the challenges of climate change and its impacts. It will provide training to teachers in every school, private and government, before the Commonwealth Games 2010.
 
It has been launched by the Climate Project India (TCPI), which was founded in March 2008. It is a volunteer-based organisation and spans six countries with over 2,500 climate leaders.
 
The project for Delhi is in collaboration with the Delhi government and was launched by Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, who said, “Our green cover in the past eight years has increased to 300 km and this is because of people’s participation. To increase it further, we want private agencies to join us and take this step forward as government alone cannot do this.”
 
Along with the state government, American Center, ASSOCHAM, CII and Indo-American Chamber of Commerce are partnering for this programme.
 
Anushka Pintoo, the Country manager of the Climate Project said, “We will give workshops to teachers on climate change, science, its impact and solutions. We will also give them teacher training tools to teach their students. The Delhi government is supporting us and it will make mandatory for all the schools in the city to learn this.”