Three Byron Bay High School students are travelling to Mauritius later this month for the It’s Our Future Earth conference.
Co-ordinating teacher Stuart Galletly-Salisbury say he successfully obtained a grant to finance the students’ travel and will be travelling with the students.
He said, ‘This is an incredible opportunity for the students, for Byron Bay High School and our region.
‘The conference will be attended by selected students from schools from across Australia and Mauritius and cover a broad range of key innovations in geography and science, as well as other STEM subjects specifically focused on the theme of achieving a sustainable “Future Earth.”
‘Each school will be creating a sustainable development plan for their regional EcoZone.
‘The conference theme has been developed working with the United Nations Information Centre (UNIC, Canberra), Questacon, Inspiring Australia, ANU, Future Earth Australia and key organisations.
‘The conference theme is based on the UN objective of achieving a sustainable future through the implementation within each country of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Carbon offset crowdfunded
‘The irony of travelling that far to talk about sustainability is not lost on the travellers. The families and friends of the students have set up a crowdfunding page to raise funds to offset the carbon footprint of travel to the conference. Any extra funds raised will be for a development project in Mauritius that supports girls and/or has an environmental benefit.’
Mr Galletly-Salisbury says they will be helped by local businesses: Beach Hotel, Stone & Wood, People of the Earth, Sean O’Shea, The Source, Eco Yoga Soul, Sydoni Yogini, Go Sea Kayaking, Enova, The Farm, and Qantum Uplift providing ‘rewards’ for contributors to the crowdfunding.
Those interested in contributing to the crowdfunding project can go to: www.startsomegood.com/byron-bay-high-mauritius-trip-carbon-offset.
Well done you guys for doing more in one week than Scott Morrison does in his (hopefully brief?) stay in Parliament. And well done for teacher, Stuart Galletly-Salisbury, for getting the travel grant.
Jim Beatson, Byron Bay