On Tuesday, June 18th 2019, Her Royal Highness Princess Lalla Hasnaa, President of the Mohammed VI Foundation for Environmental Protection inaugurated the Hassan II International Environmental Training Center, located next to the Exotic Gardens of Bouknadel, near Rabat, with the attendance of the guests and partners .
The creation of this center, named by His Majesty King Mohammed VI, was initiated by HRH Princess Lalla Hasnaa. The center is entirely dedicated to raising environmental awareness and education among all target groups: children, civil society, businesses, administrations, local government entities, etc. It is the culmination of 18 years dedicated to this mission, part of the core programmes that the Foundation has initiated since its inception in 2001.
The Hassan II International Environmental Training Center will enable the Foundation to boost its educational efforts geared towards all its targets, and rise to the world challenge of combating global warming.
The center will start with an educational corpus consisting of tools, either developed by the Foundation or provided by its international partners such as UNESCO, FAO, UN Environment, and UNFCCC, to name a few.
The advanced research in environmental education that the center intends to carry out in collaboration with multiple partners, including the Ministry of National Education, Moroccan universities and major engineering schools, will lead to the development of cutting-edge educational content.
To rapidly disseminate this pedagogy on a large scale, the Hassan II International Environmental Training Center will opt for new e-learning technologies. HRH Princess Lalla Hasnaa took part of a distance-learning sequence with the technological resources that the center’s four training rooms will be equipped with for online, live, group or face-to-face distance sessions.
These rooms will be a valuable tool for training educators who will work to change the behaviour of all audiences, in order for the latter to willingly preserve the environment through their daily actions and choices.
On the garden level, in one of the four multipurpose and connected rooms, open for green classes in the pedagogical gardens where the teaching takes place in a practical manner, three Eco-Schools participated in training sessions related to sustainable development, in the presence of HRH Princess Lalla Hasnaa.
For the construction of this center, the Foundation aimed to set an example in terms of environmental protection: site access, use of ecological materials such as soil and timber, photovoltaic power plant for energy autonomy, rainwater harvesting and wastewater treatment, waste management, permeable and tree-lined car parks, and landscaping of gardens in harmony with the natural environment. The experience gained during this eco-conscious project will pave the path towards developing a sustainable construction label specific to the kingdom.
Today, the Hassan II International Environmental Training Center has become one of the Foundation’s flagship projects, set to reach high expectations: to be at the forefront, in constant renewal, adopting advanced pedagogical approaches, both in terms of content and tools for disseminating information. Its mission is to become a role model for environmental innovation, a space for meetings and exchanges, an incubator for ideas and solutions for the environment, especially for future PhD students.
Through its pedagogical vision, the Hassan II International Environmental Training Center, which is at the heart of the Foundation’s strategy, will revive the programmes of the Foundation and its partners in Morocco, Africa, and along the Mediterranean, who will be brought successfully together.