A maximum of 24 people, primarily youths, will be selected and mobilized from schools and youth groups around the rural and urban communities. They will be taken through an experiential learning process (learning through participating and experiencing) for 5 days, with elders facilitating the learning. The Ethiopian approach is called “discovering your cultural biodiversity.” The process creates an environment where the youth learn from their communities about their traditional ecological knowledge. They document the results of their interaction with communities in writings, songs, art and drama. They also collect plants, animal materials, local food items, seeds, cultural articrafts, etc.  Every year the youth come together to celebrate their work. This approach will be used as a follow up of the leadership building process called SEGNI and for ensuring the sustainability of the approach.

Those who have participated in the process will be given an identity card and will become in effect “eco-advocates” and will be examples in sustainable living. They will pledge to educate the public, monitor unsustainable extraction of resource use, pressure decision makers to take actions and participate in tree planting and other initiatives. Another dimension to this process is that the youth will be encouraged to learn some of the traditional technologies of making articrafts. These articrafts will be sold to tourists coming to visit Ethiopia in the souvenir shops in the cities. In this way the project will create an alternative for the local youth. The program will also strengthen the environmental education program that the schools were doing as an extra curricular activity. So the effect of the program will continue even if funding is not available in the future.

Camping: SEGNI camps are situated in the heart of the protected areas. Campsites are constructed to have the least possible impact on the environment. The participants are also encouraged to leave no mark (waste) at the campsites. At the end of camping, reports have to be compiled on problems, observations and lessons learnt for record and documentation.

Story telling: The African method of sharing knowledge through the age-old art of storytelling around the night fire is practiced. Communication is always in the local language, with interpretation provided as needed.

Night Watch: Each participant has the responsibility of looking after the safety of his or her peers during an hour-long lone fire watch rotated throughout the night. This also gives opportunity for the participants to be aware of the night and develop their sense of hearing.

Additional exercises: In addition to the above practices, a whole variety of exercise will be designed to get the participants look into their life and develop their personal and group mission. They will also get trained in the tree nursery and compositing sites of the park to learn how to do compositing, raise tree seedlings, harvest water and produce vegetables.