2016

Almost 3 000 Children become Pigman's Detectives

JSC "Latvia's State Forests" (LVM) is happy about the responsiveness of the children who participated in the social campaign "Do not Litter the Forest!" held within the framework of the eco-programme "Pigman's Detectives" (Cūkmena detektīvi). 2 693 children from 135 groups of 90 kindergartens in Latvia have graduated the programme and become Pigman's detectives - they understand the importance of clean forests and are responsible for the environment.

In May, all participants of the eco-programme "Pigman's Detectives" will receive the special Pigman's detective diploma, and the most active kindergartens will be visited by Pigman himself with his Clean Forest class. In turn, the teachers who were creatively taking part in the programme will have an opportunity to participate in further training courses about the forest and its values, organised by LVM.

"It is important to form the understanding about the importance of clean forests, as well as responsibility for the environment already in early childhood. Therefore, to continue the LVM clean forest activities, we have created the first eco-programme for kindergarten pupils, encouraging them to become Pigman's assistants or detectives to combat waste in state forests," says Tomass Kotovičs, Head of LVM Communications Division.

During the school year 2015/2016 teachers of the LVM eco-programme "Pigman's Detectives" had an opportunity to not only send messages about the work done, but also to publish the news on the Pigman's website and other social networks. The latter activity turned out to be the decisive to find out which 30 kindergartens will be visited by Pigman this spring.

Insight into one of the stories for inspiration sent to Pigman by detectives of Jumprava pre-school education institution "Zvaniņš":

The eco-programme "Pigman's Detectives" is based on four themes; with the help of games, dance and songs, fairy tails, different types of visualisation children perform certain tasks of a detective to assess the good and the bad in the forest. Each theme is built according to the principle - See, Hear, Listen, Do - at the same time foreseeing active involvement and participation of children in different fun-classes.

At the beginning of the new school year, in September, the programme will be open for registration to all kindergartens in Latvia, by filling the application form available at: www.cukmens.lv.  Visit this website to read blogs of our most active participants, where anyone interested has an opportunity to draw inspiration for their good deeds.

The eco-programme "Pigman's Detectives" is carried out with the support of the Latvian Environmental Protection Fund.