NEWS

GreenKidz participated in the 5th edition of SDG Action Week on Thursday evening, September 19, 2024. The event, organized by the Ministry of Economic Development (MEO), focused on the theme “Protecting Life & Environment.”

On September 8th, Maya Mathias, Remyson Caldera, and Lisa Koppes from the GreenKidz Foundation traveled to Aruba to introduce the GreenKidz mosquito prevention program, “Give Mosquitoes No Chance,” to the ABC Islands! Maya Mathias, GreenKidz creator and coordinator, looks back on a very successful business trip, which left her eager for more.

In June 2024, GreenKidz successfully completed its tree project for five schools in Banda Bou. This project, focusing on the importance of indigenous trees in the fight against climate change, was generously funded by the Lions Club Curaçao. It was aimed at students from both mainstream and special education, allowing GreenKidz to develop a wide range of bilingual teaching materials, coloring pages, and picture boards.

Since the end of May, the coloring books from the GreenKidz Foundation have also been available at the Bruna bookstore in the Zuikertuintje Mall shopping center. The coloring books contain over 25 coloring pages and six beautiful full-color picture pages featuring familiar scenes and (nature) locations on Curaçao. These books teach children to love nature and take care of the environment.

Last week, the GreenKidz Foundation concluded its annual fundraising for Special Needs Schools ..
Thanks to donations from companies and individuals, GreenKidz was able to gift one thousand
Caribbean coloring books to special needs students in Curaçao.

On March 8th, 2024, GreenKidz took part in the Kliko Challenge award ceremony at Selikor, finalizing the hugely successful Kliko Challenge project. During this ceromony, attended by more than 100 guests, 3 secondary AGO/ VSBO schools were awarded public and jury prizes for the Kliko’s (garbage bins) they had painted under guidance of local artists.

On Wednesday, January 31, 2024, Avila Beach Hotel hosted its first a Coral Happy Hour. The sold-out and highly successful fundraising event focused on Coral Restoration and Coral Education, with the proceeds from the fundraising being split equally between the Branch Coral Foundation and the GreenKidz Foundation.

In 2024, GreenKidz entered into a fruitful and sustainable collaboration with the Rotary Club Curacao (RCC). As part of this collaboration, RCC supports various GreenKidz lessons throughout the year by providing and organizing transportation. This is facilitated through the Rotary bus project, which transports students in a beautiful tourist bus to their GreenKidz activity.

On January 17, 2024, GreenKidz organized a vibrant Coral Heroes Event at Avila Beach Hotel, a sustainable sponsor of GreenKidz. The Coral Heroes program was conducted for 30 students from the Divi Divi LOM School, a special education school in the ‘Emmastad’ district, who thoroughly enjoyed this educational, creative, and interactive workshop.

“In 2015, the GreenKidz Foundation launched its inaugural educational program on waste, litter, plastic, and recycling. A dedicated and passionate team subsequently engaged thousands of children and hundreds of teachers across Curaçao with interactive, multilingual guest lessons on nature and environmental care. Now, Maya Mathias, the GreenKidz coordinator, is ready to pursue the dream that started it all: a Kids Magazine for the entire Kingdom. Is the time finally right?

On November 22, 2023, guest lecturer Remyson Caldera from GreenKidz conducted two new GreenKidz Christmas crafting workshops for the students of classes 4a and 4b at Margaretha College. Fifty-eight children aged 7 and 8 participated in various interactive and educational activities where they learned more about litter, waste, plastic, and recycling.

In November 2023, in collaboration with Selikor and the GreenKidz Foundation, Passionistas organized the Kliko Challenge for AGO schools. Through this challenge, the foundation aims to stimulate the creativity of students and bring attention to the themes of nature and sustainability. Under the guidance of an artist, students paint a design on garbage bins (klikos) as part of this project. This gives the schools and students a chance to win great prizes.

On November 1 st , 2023, the GreenKidz Foundation launched its annual fundraising for Special Needs Education. Maya Mathias, GreenKidz coordinator: We are an inclusive foundation and have maintained warm ties with all Special Needs schools in Curacao for years. Every year, we give away 1,000 educational booklets to special needs students. This year we have developed a new Caribbean coloringbook with illustrations and beautiful coloring pages about Curacaos nature and the environment.

On October 9, 2023, GreenKidz coordinator Maya Mathias received 700 booklets titled “Weg met afval!” from the Biblionef foundation. Ineke van Riemsdijk, the representative of Biblionef in Curaçao, personally delivered them, hoping that these beautiful and cheerful workbooks will complement and support the guest lectures on waste, litter, plastic, and recycling that GreenKidz offers to schools.

Last Saturday, GreenKidz participated in the Curaçao Children’s Museum’s play fair, celebrating its annual Day of Play with a range of playful and educational activities. Alongside other local youth organizations, GreenKidz was invited to set up their own booth in the museum’s beautiful tree garden, offering engaging green activities for children and their parents.

We are thrilled that different pharmacies (Botika’s) and general practices on Curacao are offering us a helping hand by displaying, funding, selling and giving away our GreenKidz Mosquito activity prevention book.

On November 25th, GreenKidz was invited to give a small presentation to the Curacao’s mosquito control team at the Ministry of Health, Environment & Nature (GMN). We want to thank Gisette Seferina, head of the team, for the opportunity to give this presentation where we presented our educational mosquito prevention materials and discussed how we could join forces in the future to create more awareness.

The GreenKidz Foundation was exited and happy that it got the chance to meet the Dutch Research Team last week. This research team is doing in dept mosquito research on Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao, the in 70 years, to see which kinds of mosquito’s can now be found in the Dutch Caribbean.

GreenKidz feels that it’s important to teach children about mosquito prevention from a young age, especially now that mosquito’s our plaguing the Caribbean islands in vast numbers as the climate changes.

For the past 3 months Julia Marti worked for the GreenKidz foundation, doing a tremendous job as a European Solidarity Corps volunteer. She was placed at our foundation through the F.E.L.I.S Curacao Foundation.

On August 20th the world celebrates ‘World Mosquito Day’ and how far it has come in preventing the deadly diseases that mosquitos spread. From this day on, all primary and special needs schools in Curacao can pick up a free Papiamentu or Dutch Lesson pack at Mensing’s Caminada bookstore.

This year GreenKidz joined forces with Mensing’s Caminada in its yearly celebration of Book Week as the theme of this year’s book week was the environment. Mensing’s’ Caminada is the largest local bookstore on Curacao, and we are happy that they are willing to partner with us and sell our GreenKidz activity books in their store.

On July 13th the GreenKidz team was invited by K’alegria Vakantieplan to execute their new mosquito prevention program. The youth leaders of this vacation program for children in de Bonam area of Curacao were thrilled to actively participate in the program and assist the GreenKidz teaching team.

We are proud, thankful and humble to receive such an important award! 🎖️

On June 29th GreenKidz team visited the Blenchi School to execute their new mosquito prevention program. The Blenchi school is a special needs school in the Otrobanda neighborhood of Curacao that has invited GreenKidz many times before.

They were accompanied by Erwin Arkenbout, the representative of the Netherlands in the Dutch Caribbean and his wife Mariette van Soesbergen who actively took part in the program and praised the greenKidz teachers for their enthusiasm and teaching abilities.

After 3 wonderful and hugely successful GreenKidz Caribbean projects funded by Rotary Club of Curacao we were visited by two Rotary district govenors this week representing more than 25 caribbean countries.

What’s buzzing in the Dutch Caribbean? Last week we launched our hybrid and bilingual mosquito awareness and prevention program at the Schotborg School in Curaçao.

Recently, the GreenKidz Foundation launched a new educational program at the Schotborg School in Koraal Specht.

Right now, the GreenKidz team is putting the finishing touches on the last colourful teaching materials for their GreenKidz Mosquito Programme “Don’t give mosquitoes a chance”.

Recently, GreenKidz said goodbye to Loes Wille, a highly valued team member.

On 21 April GreenKidz presented its newest digital learning tool to the members of Rotary Club of Curacao, main sponsor of this project.

This spring, GreenKidz is launching a new teaching programme entitled ‘Give mosquitoes no chance’.

Early in February, the GreenKidz team gave away no less than 1,000 Kòrsou Limpi textbooks to special schools on Curaçao.

Recently GreenKidz guest teacher Remyson Caldera was a guest in TeleCuraçao’s well-known TV programme Trai Merdia. There he told presenter Sally Hooi about the Kòrsou Limpi project.

With funds from the Rotary Club of Curaçao, GreenKidz is currently working on an interactive elearn about mosquito prevention for the youth of Curaçao. The E learn contains beautiful photos and illustrations and is packed with interactive assignments and quizzes. It will be launched in the spring of 2022, together with a teaching programme and a colourful mosquito prevention book.

January 2022 On January 14, 2022 the printing presses of Tramm Imaging produced no less than 1,000 colourful Papiamentu-language Korsou Limpi booklets intended for special education. The booklets about waste and litter are personally delivered to all 10 SO schools on Curaçao and could be printed thanks to the donations of over 100 local and Dutch donors!

This month, GreenKidz was in the newspaper no less than 3 times. The Extra, the Amigoe and the Antilliaans Dagblad all reported on the successful GreenKidz Christmas fundraising of 2021. With donations from over 100 contributors on Curaçao and in the Netherlands, GreenKidz gave away 1,000 Kòrsou Limpi activity books to special education. These books will all be personally delivered to the 10 SO schools of Curaçao in the month of January.

Last month the GreenKidz Foundation concluded a successful Christmas campaign. Thanks to donations from companies and individuals, GreenKidz gave away 1,000 Kòrsou Limpi Playbooks to pupils in special education. Maya Mathias, GreenKidz Coordinator: ‘Even in these difficult COVID-times we could count on over 100 donors with a heart for environment and education! We are grateful for that.

At the beginning of December 2021, an inspiring introductory meeting took place between GreenKidz and KLM. GreenKidz Coordinator Maya Mathias spoke with Dirk Buitelaar, the new Air France/KLM manager for the Caribbean, and with Dulce Matos, who is in charge of communications and PR.

In December 2021, Monique Grol from Stinapa Bonaire visited GreenKidz on Curaçao to exchange information and to see how Stinapa and GreenKidz could join forces in the future to realise nature and environment projects together for the Caribbean youth.

In the Sunday Relay column on the site of Dossier Koninkrijksrelaties, Raquel Weisz takes turns reporting on Curaçao, this time with the subject of ‘Big Cleaning’. And Greenkidz is mentioned and praised.

Recently, the annual GreenKidz Christmas fundraising started again. Every year, GreenKidz gives away teaching materials to local schools with the help of local sponsors and donors. This year, the foundation wants to give away no less than 1,000 Korsou Limpi books to pupils in special education.

Recently, GreenKidz visited the Representation of the Netherlands in Willemstad. There, we spoke extensively with the representative ‘Erwin Arkenbout’ about our annual Christmas fundraising and the teaching materials we developed for the youth of Curacao in the past 6 years.

Recently, the CTB film crew visited the GreenKidz office at Scharloo. There they filmed GreenKidz guest teachers Cristina Serrano and Remyson Caldera who told about the history of the foundation and its future plans.

Thanks to CTB, the young GreenKidz guest teachers Remyson Caldera and Cristina Serrano have been featured in a short cheerful TV spot and a longer infomercial, telling how the GreenKidz foundation contributes to a cleaner Curaçao.

MEDIABOX At the end of October, several students from the Social and Economic Faculty (SEF) of the University of Curacao (UoC) visited GreenKidz. This happened in the framework of a research assignment into the familiarity of local youth with the term 'Plastic Soup'...

In the past few months, GreenKidz coordinator Maya Mathias spoke several times with Egidio Bundel to investigate whether GreenKidz could offer support for a possible future curriculum and textbook on the Circular Economy, which Aruba wants to move towards.

Recently, GreenKidz welcomed a number of green partners on the beautiful outdoor terrace of Hofi Cas Cora. While enjoying a delicious drink and snack, everyone who had contributed to the Korsou Limpi book could see the end result.

MEDIABOX Last month Lions Dive & Beach Hotel donated through GreenKidz no less than 65 Kòrsou Limpi Do Books and 4 Kòrsou Limpi textbooks to the Schotborg school that actively participates in the World Clean Up Day. The colourful books were received...

Lions Dive, a loyal GreenKidz sponsor, is launching a fun new campaign this autumn to support GreenKidz in a sustainable way. GreenKidz collection boxes will be placed in the hotel. Tourists who leave their remaining change in these boxes at the end of their stay will receive a GreenKidz colouring book to take home.

In order to create more awareness in the Curaçao community about the problems surrounding waste and litter, the Curaçao Tourism Board is launching several commercials during the September Clean Up Month. The aim of these commercials is to combat Trash Blindness and to call on citizens to participate in the annual World Clean Up Day.

Last month, GreenKidz renewed its contacts with the waste management company Selibon on Bonaire. Together with policy officer Shunelca and PR officer Melinda, we investigated whether the Korsou Limpi textbook and accompanying Korsou Limpi activity book, in an adapted form, could also be interesting for Bonaire, especially for Bonairean children in primary education.

MEDIABOX At the launch of the successful CTB campaign Tene Korsou Limpi Camapgne, GreenKidz guest teacher Remyson Caldera presented the GreenKidz Korsou Limpi book to the Minister of Social Affairs and Employment. The book will be made available in print to all FO...

On 21 August 2021 GreenKidz and Carmabi organised a joint Happy Teachers Hour at the Marine Education Center at Piscadera Bay. During this happy hour teachers from all 70 FO and SO schools on Curacao could pick up free lesson packages for their school and enjoy a snack and a drink on the beach.

At the end of July GreenKidz visited various green and educational organisations on Saba to explore opportunities for cooperation. GreenKidz talked among others with the head of the Saba Comprehensive School and the education coordinator of the Saba Conservation Foundation.

On 8 July 2021 the children’s exhibition Korsou Limpi in the Savonet Museum of the Christoffelpark was festively opened by Rotary Club of Curacao, Prince Bernard Culture Fund Caribbean and the Foundation Curacao Clean Up This permanent, interactive exhibition stimulates children to think about waste and litter and to become environmentally conscious waste and litter clean-up heroes by applying the principles of Reuse, Reduce, Recycle & Refuse in their daily lives

On 16 June 2021, the pupils of the MC PIAR School in special education followed the coral teaching programme of GreenKidz and Carmabi. This took place at a beautiful location at the Brakkeput Water Sports Centre Foundation at the Spanish Water of Curacao. This water sports centre functions as a water sports club for the defence personnel on Curacao, who among other things work in the navy and the coast guard.

On World Ocean Day, 8 June next, GreenKidz and Carmabi are launching their Coral Heroes teaching programme about Curaçao’s coral reef. This program will be made available free of charge to all FO and SO schools on Curaçao and fits seamlessly into the curriculum of the subject Mens, Natuur & Techniek (MNT).

To introduce students and teachers on Curacao to the unique possibilities of 3D tours, Balance Blended Learning is making a 3D tour of the Marine Education Center (MEC) on Piscaderabaai on a voluntary and free basis. This 3D tour will be recorded on 31 May 2021 and launched on 8 June 2021.

In recent weeks, the GreenKidz Foundation was approached by UNESCO and CTB. Both organisations asked if GreenKidz could provide and develop ideas, information materials and teaching materials tailored to various awareness projects for the youth and the population of Curaçao. GreenKidz is happy to help other organizations and is now investigating how it can support both organizations in the short term.

The past few months, GreenKidz coordinator Maya Mathias and GreenKidz designer Ivonne Zegveld worked hard on the textbook Kòrsou Limpi, which will be launched together with a creative activity book The development of this book, which will be distributed to all FO and SO schools of Curaçao, was financed by Rotary Club Curaçao.

Together with Carmabi Education, the GreenKidz Foundation is currently working on a unique environmental project in Christoffel Park. There, a colourful Kòrsou Limpi corner is set up in the Savonet Museum, which is visited by thousands of local schoolchildren every year. This project will be launched in July 2021 together with a colourful Kòrsou Limpi textbook and activity book.

On 26 February 2021, the GreenKidz Carmabi team conducted the first Coral Heroes Pilot lesson at the primary school ‘De Meander’. This lesson, which took the whole morning, was evaluated very positively by the 20 pupils and their teacher.

In January 2021, GreenKidz and Carmabi completed a very successful Christmas campaign, raising money among companies and individuals for their Coral Heroes project. This project raises coral awareness and encourages local school children to enjoy the coral reef responsibly.

Inspire our local schools and create more Coral Reef Awareness on Curacao! With your help, we can give every school in Curacao our unique, educational coral teaching package with our colourful poster and coral comic book in two languages (PAP/NED) for free

In these difficult COVID times, GreenKidz very successfully joined forces with Carmabi Educatie. Together they developed a modern and interactive teaching package of four coherent lessons about Curacao’s reef, including a colourful A1 poster and an exciting comic book in two languages (NED/PAP).

At the end of October, GreenKidz guest teacher Remyson Caldera gave an interactive lesson about plastic and recycling to the Meander preschoolers. In the open air, the preschoolers learned playfully how to recycle plastic bottles with the help of the miniature recycling unit of GreenKidz.

In the week of the World Clean Up Day, on 19 September, the renewed website of the GreenKidz Foundation went live. This website, sponsored by the Rotary Club Curaçao, contains a large number of colourful and bilingual teaching materials that can be downloaded free of charge and easily by anyone.

On Friday, August 21, 2020, the GreenKidz Foundation concluded its three-year GreenTeachers Caribbean project. While enjoying green champagne and tasty snacks, the GreenTeachers award was presented for the third and final time at Parke Leyba in Scharloo.

At this moment GreenKidz creators Maya Mathias and Ivonne Zegveld are working on a unique textbook ‘Kòrsou Limpi’ that will be released at Christmas. The book, with beautiful drawings by Sander van Beusekom, stimulates children to clean up litter and to be aware of how to deal with waste.

With a very generous donation of ANG 75,000, Rotary Club Curacao became the main sponsor of the GreenKidz Foundation starting in 2020. The donation was raised during the May 2019 Curacao Challenge Fundraiser and will be spent on 3 projects, namely:

Last Saturday, GreenKidz, Carmabi and Children’s Museum Curaçao carried out the pilot project ‘Experience our nature’ on location at Carmabi Together, the three organisations want to further enrich regular education on Curacao with modern, bilingual nature education that focuses on our island and its unique nature. With this successful pilot, the first step has been taken.

Last summer, GreenKidz guest teacher Claudio conducted a lively workshop within Luna Kresiente’s holiday plan With all kinds of fun interactive and creative assignments, the children learned all about plastics and recycling and how to take care of the environment and waste.

This summer GreenKidz organises active holiday activities together with green partners. With Seaquarium and Green Phenix we offer activities on the World Ocean Day and with Carmabi and the Curacaos Children’s Museum we provide nature workshops.

At the end of April 2020, the GreenKidz Foundation launched its first digital Stay Safe newsletter on productive, healthy and safe working at home during the Corona crisis.
With this free newsletter, we want to support our network with homeworking tips.

At the end of December 2019, with the help of a large number of donors, we donated over 1,000 Educational Christmas Colouring Books to special education students. These colouring books were distributed during the Christmas celebration and received with open arms.