Roots & Shoots Fact Sheet
Roots & Shoots
Global environmental and humanitarian education program for youth
In February of 1991, a small group of Tanzanian students gathered with Dr. Jane Goodall on the porch of her home in Dar es Salaam. The students shared Dr. Goodall's fascination for animals and concern for the environment and wanted to know what they could do to make the world a better place. The students decided to form clubs in each of their schools. That modest beginning spawned JGI's Roots & Shoots global environmental and humanitarian education program for youth. Today Roots & Shoots has registered tens of thousands of members in almost 100 countries. Each group, whether of suburban U.S. elementary schoolers or youngsters living in Shanghai, tackles local hands-on projects to make its world a better place—projects for the human community, for animals and for the environment we all share.
The program is designed to be youth driven and emphasizes the principle that knowledge leads to compassion, which inspires action. Groups select service projects after they have surveyed their communities to better understand local issues and problems.
Roots & Shoots group activities are as varied as young peoples' imaginations. The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Roots & Shoots group of Newark, Del., filled backpacks with school supplies to give to Liberian refugees in their community. A group in Lagos, Nigeria, cleared rubble washed onto a road by yearly floods and eliminated pools of water that bred malaria-bearing mosquitoes. In Shanghai, the Changzheng Middle School group educated the public about recycling by organizing a phonebook recycling project.
Roots & Shoots makes a concerted effort to foster global connectedness. All over the world, members are encouraged to correspond, network and learn from each other. Some of our newest Roots & Shoots groups are in and around refugee camps in Uganda and Tanzania, founded in partnership with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Four school groups inside the Lugufu refugee camp near Kigoma, Tanzania, are learning about conservation. They also raised money to buy chickens as a source of eggs to eat and sell, and planted three large vegetable gardens.
Since 2003, Dr. Goodall has encouraged Roots & Shoots groups to build and fly Giant Peace Doves in honor of the International Day of Peace (September). As part of the extraordinary worldwide event, peace doves have "flown" in China, Tanzania, Italy, England, Kosovo, Israel, Mongolia, the U.S. and scores of other locations. In 2003, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan joined Dr. Goodall in flying a Peace Dove on the lawn of the United Nations headquarters in New York City.
The Roots & Shoots National Youth Leadership Council was established in 2003. The council includes dedicated high school students from across the U.S. who act as youth ambassadors, working to strengthen the national Roots & Shoots community.
Roots & Shoots also offers resources to educators and those who work with youth. Its web-based program for teens, Lessons for Hope, uses field notes, photos and journals from Dr. Goodall's early days at Gombe, along with her writings on hope and making a difference, to help students recognize their personal values and take positive action.
The Foster Care Handbook guides foster care and out-of-home care groups through the planning and implementing of a community service project and other skill-building activities. Roots & Shoots has distributed the handbook to more than 500 foster care professionals.
