>>ANNOUNCER: Coming up next time on Environment Matters:
>>Amanda Pitzer: It's really easy to have the attitude that "Oh it's been polluted,
it'll always be polluted.
It'll never get better" but we have shown that it can get better.
>>ANNOUNCER: A twenty year effort to clean up the Cheat River Watershed is beginning
to show some concrete results.
We'll have their story next time on Environment Matters.
>>KATHY COSCO: Finally, teaching young people to protect and preserve the environment we
all share is nothing new for team members at the West
Virginia Department of Environmental Protection's Youth Environmental Program, but for one of
them it presented an opportunity of a lifetime.
>>NARRATION: Most days you can find the DEP's Callie Sams working in her office in Upshur
County or working with students at Youth Environmental Program events throughout
the state but recently her travels took her far beyond the mountains of West Virginia.
>>Callie Sams: It kinda started at Christmas time.
I like to make a donation, my whole family does this...
we always make a donation to usually a local charity but any charity of our choosing.
Sometimes we do it as you would do a gift exchange where you pick another family member's
name out of a hat and send your gift donation to the charity of their choosing and this
year I had bumped into a group called Nepal Teacher Training Innovations
and it just sounded like a really worthwhile organization.
They do educational training in Nepal and I thought, well this year maybe I'll have
my Christmas donation go to them.
>>NARRATION: and that led to a nine day teaching mission with the group.
For Callie, it was a perfect fit.
>>CALLIE: It combined different interests of mine including teaching and working with
children and teaching about the environment and recycling but also just being able to
see the different culture.
>>NARRATION: Callie taught at three different schools -- a private school in the capitol
of Kathmandu and two government schools in rural areas east of the city -- teaching
classes on litter and recycling in a country facing challenges.
>>CALLIE: They're transitioning from a monarchy to a democracy and therefore a lot of government
services that I'm used to and we're all used to here --
especially trash service is spotty at best there, I guess you would say so I think the
amount of trash was a little bit surprising to me.
>>NARRATION: and a big part of that problem -- plastics...
>>CALLIE: There wasn't the awareness that they wouldn't just decompose like a piece
of paper and that sort of thing.
So I think as that awareness builds, and as their infrastructure grows, and as they feel
more empowered as people with the freedom of democracy, I think that
they'll be able to address the problem of litter.
I think there are a lot of people already that are working towards that goal.
>>NARRATION: Besides raising environmental awareness, Callie's trip was an opportunity
to experience another culture and leave a little bit of West Virginia behind...
>>CALLIE: I started out each lesson actually I brought the West Virginia travel guide and
I had some other pictures from West Virginia and so before I got into the discussion of
recycling and the environment we'd do a little bit of compare and contrast,
both the environment and different cultural aspects of Nepal compared to West Virginia
and that seemed to be a good way to teach them about West Virginia
so they could see -- Oh yeah, we do that here also, or No, what are they doing there?
-- they didn't recognize some things and wanted to learn more about it.
I think the best part of the trip for me was getting to visit with a village family and
we had the opportunity to stay in their home and so it was in a rural area northeast of
Kathmandu and so we traveled a couple of hours by car first and then we traveled another
hour, hour and a half walking so we were going up
a trail just straight up a mountain pretty much to their home and had the opportunity
to stay two nights with them -- living in their home and it was really an
amazing experience.
>>NARRATION: and a lifetime of memories.
In Charleston, I'm Brent Kessinger for Environment Matters.
>>KATHY COSCO: Callie also provided her students with reusable bags donated by the DEP.
To see more photos from Callie's trip you can check out the Youth Environmental Program's
Facebook page.
There's a link to it on our website dep.wv.gov.
We leave you now in Pendleton County near the base of West Virginia's best known scenic
attractions: Seneca Rocks.
Seneca Rocks offers some of the best technical rock climbing in the eastern United States.
On behalf of all of us here at the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, thanks
for watching.
We'll see you next time.