09/06/2010

As part of GPIC’s policy of protection of the environment and promoting environmental awareness among Bahrain school students, the Company in co-operation with the Education Ministry organized a number of educational lectures concerning the environment during the current school year 2009/2010.

This year’s programme covered a number of government and private schools including 30 government schools and 2 private schools. A total of 2010 students, of both sexes in different school levels, benefited from these lectures that were presented during April and May 2010.

The programme comes as part of a wide range of environmental programmes adopted by the Company for development and education of a generation of school students to enhance their awareness of protection of the environment and reduction of environmental pollution.

The programme was first launched in 2001in co-ordination with the Education Ministry’s Student Services Directorate and continued until this year 2010. Through this programme, a number of well trained and qualified GPIC engineers visit schools of different levels to present environmental lectures in both Arabic and English.

The lectures focus on a number of key environmental topics such as global warming, depletion of the ozone layer and acid rain. The lectures also cover the role of corporations and individuals in protecting the environment, reducing the effects of environmental pollution and reducing the depletion of natural resources. The lectures seek to educate the school boys and girls on their current and future role in protecting the environment.

During the period of this programme, lectures were presented to 251 schools with beneficiaries totaling some 18,210 students.

Believing that protection of the environment is the responsibility of all, GPIC continued to develop its environmental projects to cover more members of the community and to contribute to creation of better opportunities for better environmentally aware and educated generations. It should be noted that GPIC has launched numerous environmental projects that include but are not limited to the following:

• Education-GPIC Environmental Research Programme: It is an environmental research programme targeting secondary school students and seeks to contribute the students’ skills, develop research and creativity skills amongst them, encouraging them to be competitive and looking for best means of protecting the environment and preservation of environmental resources and reduction of pollution
• Fish Farm is considered one of the key projects for protection of the marine environment. The GPIC Fish Farm has around 60,000 fishes of sea-breams and hamour. These species of fish are cultured for a period of 12 months and then they are returned to different areas in the territorial waters in co-operation with the Fisheries Directorate. This farm has already supplied territorial waters with more than 330,000 fishes until the present time
• Bird Sanctuary: It is situated in an area adjacent to the Company and provides a suitable habitat for birds to live and breed in this area
• HRH Princess Sabika Perfumed Plants Garden: It grows some 45 different kinds of rare perfumed plants and is considered as one of the most beautifully landscaped areas in the Kindom