Freedom to Breathe

Overview of the campaign

On International Children’s Day in June 2021, Global Action Plan and Blueair launched the “Freedom to breathe” campaign, to empower young people to join together to call on the United Nations to acknowledge their right to clean air.

The campaign aims to gather the support of 20,000 children from four target cities (starting with Beijing, Delhi, London, Los Angeles) - in support of a call to the UN to acknowledge Children’s Right to Clean Air. Students will have the opportunity to join a virtual event in November to hear the response from the UN.

This campaign is a school programme, which educates children on the importance of breathing clean air and what they can do to minimize their exposure to common sources of harmful pollution. This campaign is being implemented with the help of various partner institutions in cities from each of the four countries, which have some of the worst levels of recorded pollution – London, Bejing, Delhi, and Los Angeles.

In India, Centre for Environment Education (CEE) a national institution is partnering with GAP and Blueair to implement the campaign in schools of Delhi to run a six month of the international ‘Freedom to breathe’ campaign.

FTB Campaign Teachers Training Workshop Video

Why Freedom to Breathe Campaign?

Some of the research study reveals:

New international research reveals, despite the year-long pandemic, young people from China, India, the UK and US are almost as worried about how air pollution will affect their health, as COVID-19.
Children from China, India, the UK and US also overwhelmingly believe they should have a right to clean air, which is currently not stipulated as a child’s right defined by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Two-thirds (67%) of young people from India, China, the UK and US are worried about how air pollution will affect their health, which is almost as much as they worry about the health impacts of catching COVID-19 (72%), new research by Global Action Plan and Blueair reveals.

Further findings says that in India, young people report significant impacts of poor air quality on their day-to-day lives with 32% saying that before Coronavirus, air pollution stopped them from playing outside or running as fast as they would like to every day. Further to this, a third of children (33%) in India felt air pollution stopped them from being able to breathe easily every day.

Join the Campaign

For Freedom to breathe campaign, CEE will be working with the schools of Delhi and work closely with teachers and team students. Through the campaign, student’s will

Understand the state of air quality in their city, and how it compares to other cities.
Understand the health impacts of air quality on their physical health, mental health and their ability to learn.
Understand how they can claim their right to clean air by understanding what the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is. It is focused on their rights to the best possible health, clean water and a clean environment (article 24), but does not include the explicit ‘right to clean air.’

Keeping the present Covid 19 pandemic situation in mind, the campaign is planned to be conducted online. The campaign activities will start from July 2021 and end in November 2021. To join the campaign, write to us on paryavaranmitra@ceeindia.org.

What are campaign activities?

Following activities are part of the campaign:

Training of nominated teacher/s for participation in the online teachers training workshop for orientation on running the campaign.
Each school needs to engage minimum 200 students from any or all classes of 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th in the campaign.
Teacher/s will be provided with online educational resources to run the campaign activities.
Campaign activities will involve – online orientation of students (40-50 minutes) and follow up activities done by students at home (2-3 days engagement).
CEE team will guide and handhold teachers for running the campaign.
Submission of selected creative entries from students and short report on campaign activities.
Submission of total number of students engaged in the campaign on global campaign website https://www.blueair.com/in/freedomtobreathe-jointhecall.html

How this campaign will benefit?

Students will be able to

Understand the importance of breathing clean air
Develop attitude and behaviour in relation to air and impacts for health
Create a group of students as environment leaders for becoming role models for taking action for clean air at individudal and family level.

As an educational institutions,

School and teachers will be acknowledged through a certificate of participation.
Selected students participating in submission of creative entries will receive certificate.
Selected schools will get a chance to participate in a virtual online event in November 2021 where the children from Globe will be empowered to call on the UN to acknowledge their right to clean air
Raising the profile of the school as part of a large school network
Connect to other environmental education initiatives of CEE

About Campaign Partners

Blueair is a world-leading producer of air purification solutions for home and professional use. Founded in Sweden, Blueair delivers innovative, best-in-class, energy efficient products and services sold in over 60 countries around the world. Blueair is part of the Unilever family of brands

Global Action Plan is a charity that helps people live more sustainable lives by connecting what is good for us and good for the planet. We're the people behind Clean Air Day, the UK's largest air pollution campaign. We work with people on bringing about compassion not consumerism and increasing wellbeing – what is good for us is often greener too. And we bring business and young people together to work on building a sustainable future. Helping young people develop the skills and knowledge to tackle environmental issues is good for the planet and everyone’s future too.

Centre for Environment Education (CEE) was established in 1984 as a Centre of Excellence of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India. As a national institution, CEE’s mandate is to promote environmental awareness nationwide. CEE develops innovative programmes and educational material and builds capacity in the field of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). It is committed to ensure that Environmental Education (EE) leads to action for sustainable development.