Celebrate our Roots & Shoots 30th Anniversary!

Nearly 30 years ago, on the 19th February 1991, Dr Jane Goodall set up the first ever Roots & Shoots group with 12 students from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. The students were concerned about some of the problems facing their community and the environment they lived in and wanted to do something about it. 

Roots & Shoots today

Fast forward 30 years, and there are now Roots & Shoots groups in over 65 countries around the world, including UAE, the United Kingdom, the US, Indonesia, Peru, Latin America, Quatar and many more.These young people are taking the mission of Roots & Shoots to heart, making the world a better place for people and animals and caring for the environment. Between them, they’ve worked on a huge variety of projects, like planting trees and vegetable gardens to aiding urban biodiversity, recycling and composting, teaching their communities about the issues of habitat destruction, speaking up against single use plastic and the importance to care and respect marine life, raising money to fund education and conservation projects around the world and working with local media to raise awareness around the importance of forests.

We are so inspired by all your hard work and achievements!

Even through these challenging times, you have not given up and continue to act to create a better world for this beautiful planet we call home - thank you!

Help us celebrate!

And now, with less than a month to go, we are calling on all of you to help us celebrate this special anniversary and all that has been achieved!Celebrations around the World will commence on the 19^th February and will go on for 6 months – up until Peace Day 2021.Here in the UK, we’ve prepared a dedicated set of resources looking back at how the world has changed for the better since 1991 and predicting what 2051 will bring. Get creative and share your hopes for the future!

Get involved in the Anniversary Film

We would also like you to help us put together a special film to share on the day of the Roots & Shoots 30th Birthday:

• Both students and teachers can get involved
• Record a short video message like “Happy 30th Birthday Roots & Shoots” or “Happy 30th Anniversary Roots & Shoots”
• AND/OR you can also dedicated a special project or activity to Roots & Shoots, like “To celebrate Roots & Shoots, I’m going to eat less meat” or “to help make a difference, I’m going to plant 10 trees”. It could be about using less, recycling, caring for animals or those less fortunate. You can record these as a video to be added to our special celebration video.
• You can record on any device - smart phones are perfect! Try to record it as a horizontal/landscape video rather than vertical/portrait.
• When recording, remember to do it someplace quiet and with bright, even light.
• You can also create a poster/drawing to commemorate the day – just send us a photo of you holding it.

The deadline to send us your video/photo is Wednesday 10th February. 

Please e-mail it to Jasmina Georgovska at jasmina@janegoodall.org.uk

We will put all these together and share with our Global family and on all our social media channels!

We will require your permission to use the video and please include your first name and school name when sending us the footage.

There will be a special monetary prize given for the best video which we hope to show at a virtual awards ceremony later this year.

Let’s make this Anniversary a very special one and get 2021 off to a bright start!

The Roots & Shoots team