The Bahrain Women Association for Human Development endorsed the Earth Charter back in 2002, and since, they have been making efforts to promote the sustainability vision articulated in the Charter. In 2010, they created the Environmental Citizenship Program (ECP), and decided to incorporate the Earth Charter into its activities. One of the aims of ECP is to collaborate with the Ministry of Finance, specifically with its Go Green Committee, to implement ECP activities with the Ministry.
The idea of this collaboration is to offer training to Ministry of Finance employees to raise awareness about the importance of the environmental aspects of sustainability, to encourage their individual sense of responsibility to the Earth, to help them link their actions and decisions with environmental concerns, to activate the employees’ leadership skills in initiating a positive change in their work environment, and finally to spread the word about the Earth Charter Principles, not only within the Ministry of Finance, but with other government entities.
One of the first steps of this collaboration was to introduce the Earth Charter to the Ministry of Finance Go Green Committee, and explain the practical aspects of the proposed joint actions under ECP. This took place during a meeting on 13 June 2011, where members of ECP made a presentation about the Earth Charter. The attendees of this meeting were: Fatima Frutan, the Director of ECP, Bedoor Rajab, ECP member, Mr. Hasan Abdulla, the Head of Go Green Committee, and other members of the Ministry of Finance.
The presentation was highly appreciated by the members of the committee as the program goes complements the Go Green campaign. Now, the Go Green Committee will seek the approval of the Minister of Finance to sign the agreement between the Bahrain Women Association for Human Development and the Ministry to implement the ECP actions with the Earth Charter.