Rare Pride Training Centers

A partnership with the University of Kent at Canterbury (United Kingdom) and the University of Guadalajara (Mexico)

Each Pride campaign begins with 10 weeks specialized training for the campaign coordinators—who are typically employees of protected areas, forestry departments or conservation NGOs. Topics include the principles and techniques of ecology, education, evaluation, communication, and social marketing.

Rare’s training centers were designed to prepare these individuals to implement successful awareness raising campaigns, while meeting the increasing need for more professionally trained conservation educators.

Each training session is held at one of two participating universities: the University of Kent at Canterbury in the United Kingdom (course in English) and the University of Guadalajara in Mexico (course in Spanish). After completing their field-based Pride campaigns, campaign managers return to the university for two weeks to complete the evaluations of their projects.

As an added incentive for the campaign coordinators, the participating universities offer an official diploma in Conservation Education for those who successfully complete their Pride campaigns and the university-based coursework.

Training Course Description

Campaign coordinators receive formal training at a university immediately before and immediately after implementing their field-based Pride Campaigns.

Pre-Campaign Training: Ten weeks

This “classroom” phase at the university combines intensive academic modules with workshops on practical techniques. Taught by university faculty and Rare education specialists, each core module provides 20 hours of instruction, through lectures, seminars, and local field studies, plus individual and group assignments.

The modules are as follows:

Methods of Study: Locating and using environmental information in the electronic age
Introduction to Biodiversity
Social Science Approaches to Environmental Understanding
Ecology of Habitats & Populations
Conservation and the Law
The Marketing and Economics of Conservation

Additionally, through a series of workshops, students learn practical techniques for conservation education. The workshops cover the following main topics:

Opinion Measurement and Evaluation (covers surveys, focus groups, and results-analysis software)
Communicating Conservation (covers public speaking, use of materials and props, and message, script, and lesson plan development)

Post-Campaign Training: Two weeks

At the close of the field-based campaigns, participants return to the university for a final two weeks of workshops and seminars lead by their professors and Rare staff. Campaign managers report on and evaluate the results of their campaigns, and create follow-up plans for their site education programs.

Rare Pride around the world

Asia and the Pacific

Chuuk, Federated States of Micronesia
Komodo National Park, Indonesia
Gau Islands, Fiji
Laojunshan Region, Northwest Yunnan Province, China
Western Sichuan Province and North-west Yunnan, China
Palawan, Philippines

Africa

Western Area Peninsula Forest, Sierra Leone
Cederberg Mega Reserve and Wilderness Area, South Africa
Van der Kemp’s Kloof and northern areas of Port Elizabeth, South Africa
Succulent Karoo, South Africa

Latin America

Central Coast, Belize
Atlantic Forest Central Biodiversity Corridor, Southern Bahia, Brazil
Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve, Mexico
Mariposa Monarca Biosphere Reserve, Mexico
El Ocote Biosphere Reserve, Chiapas, Mexico
Tikal National Park, Guatemala
Esmeraldas Provice, Ecuador
Bahía Magdalena, Baja California, Mexico

Ecuador, Guatemala, Brazil, and Mexico send delegates of Pride:

Aspiring conservation educators from around Latin America are lining up for Rare’s newest “Pride University”, the training center just launched in partnership with the University of Guadalajara. The first class includes educators from Mexico to Brazil, united by a common goal: to save threatened species and fragile natural areas, while building Latin American pride in the environment. Beginning late this year, campaigns will be underway across the western hemisphere focusing on saving valuable marine habitat in Baja California to the protection of endangered primates in Brazil’s Atlantic forests.

Land of the red panda and golden monkey inspire new conservation efforts:

In the remote mountains of Southwest China, approximately 25 different ethnic groups have lived in partial isolation since ancient times– together with the remaining populations of giant pandas, red pandas, golden monkeys, and snow leopards. In September, RARE launched two Pride campaigns in the region, a place of unparalleled beauty and biodiversity. Partnering with Conservation International and the Nature Conservancy, both of the year-long campaigns will focus on raising environmental awareness in the Northwest region of the Yunnan Province and creating a powerful constituency for conservation to fight mounting pressures of agricultural and population expansion, mass tourism, logging, illegal hunting and the wildlife trade.

Fiji Petrel fights extinction with help from Milika Ratu

The Fiji petrel, or Pterodroma macgillivrayi, is a critically endangered bird species that spends much of its life at sea and was thought to be extinct until its rediscovery in 1983. Since then, 8 more have been spotted and it has been listed as “critical” by the IUCN and Birdlife International, which means that it has a 50 % chance of becoming extinct in the next 5 years. The bird is under continuous threat from habitat loss due to logging and introduced species, particularly rats and cats. But a pride campaign aimed at raising environmental awareness among the isolated island communities of Fiji is using the bird to inspire pride in Fijian natural resources. In fact, campaign coordinator Milika Ratu, spent the last few weeks boating to and from isolated villages to do school visits in her giant Fiji Petrel costume.