Hailey with the money she raised.
Doha: In 2021, Qatar Museums began a collaboration with local schools to develop partnerships to allow young people to get the most from the museum’s resources.
As part of this partnership, Dadu Children’s Museum and the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change allowed some of the teachers to go to Fuwairit and witness the turtle nesting programme. These teachers could then spread awareness to their colleagues and students.
At Swiss International School, Hailey went the extra mile to ensure that these precious sea creatures would be protected by creating beautiful clay figurines and information guides to educate others about sharks, dugongs and, of course, the precious sea turtles.
Sea turtles are highly threatened by climate change as this affects the gender of their eggs and rising waters are destroying their breeding grounds. Hailey and a group of students in Grade 7 researched how 25% of climate change is caused by food waste and they realised that they could take immediate action to protect the turtles by reducing food waste.
Hailey sold her figurines and raised enough money to buy two compost bins for the primary school students so that they can take action too. The bins are created by Wahab Qatar (a charity that addresses food waste), and this organisation can be contacted to do educational sessions for children of all ages so that they understand the importance of reducing food waste in Qatar.
One can also find out more about the turtle conservation project on Dadu Museum’s webpage on the Qatar Museums website. Hailey encourages other children to take action to protect the environment and educate the younger generations.
