Mid September, ISHR’s Model UN team set off to travel to Cambridge University International Model United Nations. Travel was not simple due to the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II and despite having to rebook flights and suffer delays, it was a tremendously worthwhile experience for all. Our students represented diverse countries in various committees looking at a number of challenging topics. They did our whole community proud by speaking with knowledge, courage and no little amount of skill!

Today, we celebrated Grade 5 students finishing their time in Primary School and moving into the next phase of their education with a wonderful Moving Up Ceremony. CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

ISHR is deeply committed to educating global citizens and actively supporting the United Nations’ goals. These goals, ratified by 193 countries, are a worldwide initiative to end poverty, safeguard the environment, and promote peace and prosperity for all by 2030.

In line with these aspirations, ISHR believes that the most effective way to contribute to these goals is by instilling the values they embody in our students. As an institution, we strive to be exemplary role models by taking decisive action to protect our climate.

This year, we are proud to announce that our school has achieved CO2-neutrality, reflecting our unwavering dedication to sustainability and our responsibility to future generations.

Over the past years the following measures have been implemented:

• Purchased 100% green electricity from renewable sources
• Installed an individual room heating control to save energy
• Insulated the ceilings of our listed buildings to reduce heating costs
• Installed a new, more efficient compact heating station
• Replaced lights in several areas of the school with LED technology
• Reduced copy paper and electricity consumption through a modern copy management system
• Created incentives for staff to use public transport by offering a job ticket

Fokus Zukunft

Since no school can avoid CO2 emissions completely, ISHR worked together with the climate agency “Fokus Zukunft” to have the remaining CO2 production measured and analysed.

The result of this work was that ISHR emitted a total of 288 tons of CO2 in 2022 which corresponds to 2,22 tons per staff member and is very low compared to other educational institutions.

To offset the remaining CO2 pollution, ISHR has purchased officially-qualified certificates. The money spent for these certificates is used to support climate protecting investments in areas where they are most needed:

288 certificates from the projects:

• VCS cooking stove Kenia
• VCS water India
• VCS & CCBS forest Brazil

You might ask yourself, what good does it do to produce CO2 in Germany and compensate for it in parts of the world that are far away? Well, this is our shared world, but every Euro we spend goes much further in Uganda, for example, than it does here, or with our immediate neighbors in Western Europe.

This does not stop us from working for a cleaner environment on our doorstep and we will continue to look for ways to reduce our carbon footprint further.

Join us in protecting our environment because there is no planet B!

A huge ‘thank you’ to Claire Sands Baker, Co-founder and Director of The Toothpick Project who visited our G6 students this week.

This company is working hard to combat the threat that parasitic plants present in Kenya’s agriculture. Ms Baker explained to her engaged audience how they have created a biological solution to this biological problem. Using a live active inoculum from a fungal-coated toothpick, The Toothpick Project arms smallholder farmers with bio-herbicide to help them kill Striga; a destructive parasitic weed that attacks the roots of staple crops in sub-Saharan Africa.

https://www.toothpickproject.org