Dr. Jane Goodall

3 March

In one of the school vans, a small, rather international delegation of the Primary section of Tervuren, being Rodrigue Mabille, Dario Noterangelo, Alice Murphy, Maaike Blindenbach, Vilhelmiina Haavisto and Fabian Selvik Sandrup, headed early in the morning of the third of March for the city of Liège. Comfortable in time we settled down in one of the theatres of the university, a waiting what we would encounter in the next one and half hour. We rather soon realized we were obviously the youngest participants in the room, surrounded by university students and staff.

The introduction by the professor of the faculty organizing the event was informative but geared to the participants who had a solid understanding of the requirements of a valid research project. The video setting the pace for Dr. Jane Goodall her presentation was moving and at the same time set a clear picture what she had encountered in her fifty years experience with chimpanzees and the human impact on environments worldwide, but in particular in Tanzania.

Maaike and Vilhelmiina captured the essence of her presentation as follows:

She welcomed us with good morning in English, French, German, Swahili and chimp. Jane Goodall has 96 projects around the world, but she wanted to inform us about Roots and Shoots. Roots and Shoots is a program for young people. It is made to help the world be a better place. She could not choose which was worse for animals: laboratories or circuses. This is what she said: “A lot of people that I meet say oh well, it’s hopeless anyway to save the planet. But that is not true. There are many basic consequences for the destruction of forests where chimps live. You are basically destroying their hope of survival.”

Dr. Jane Goodall, besides being the UN Ambassador of Peace since 2001, is the founder and an inspiring advocate of this above named initiative ‘Roots and Shoots’. In her own words this spontaneous born initiative in the early 90’s is meant to do the following:

Roots creep underground everywhere and make a firm foundation. Shoots seem very weak, but to reach the light, they can break open brick walls. Imagine that the brick walls are all the problems we have inflicted on our planet. Hundreds of thousands of roots & shoots, hundreds of thousands of young people around the world, can break through these walls. We CAN change the world.

Enjoying our lunch at the side of the mighty river ‘De Meuse’, we kind of became unconsciously aware we had just experienced something quite special. Not yet knowing and realizing the full impact of this encounter with such a special person, we returned home and decided to go ‘underground’ for some time to make the soil right for our next initiatives. In that way also the other children can join in with this truly marvelous experience.

For photos, please see the ‘Photo Album’.

For more information on the web go to www.rootsandshoots.org,
or to www.janegoodall.be