In Sikuzu school in Simalaha, children attend eco-clubs as part of Peace Park’s Environmental Education Programme operated in partnership with Children in the Wilderness. It aims to educate children in rural communities about the environment and how best to look after it.
In order to protect vast tracts of land such as those in transfrontier conservation areas, it is essential to engage with communities that live in and around parks, reserves and conservancies. It is, after all, their landscape. It is these children and those that come after them that will inherit the landscape, its trees and wildlife. By igniting their passion to protect the precious natural assets all around them, they will be become the guardians of their natural heritage.
This is an exciting initiative with Children in the Wilderness (CITW), a non-profit organisation, which aims to facilitate sustainable conservation in Africa by focusing on the next generation of decision-makers.
Eco-clubs are run by teachers or community members and take part on school grounds, fitting in with the school curriculum. The activities are fun and engaging, managed in groups so they teach life skills too. A fun part of the club is learning about the importance of trees. Students ‘meet a tree’ by feeling it whilst blindfolded, and then have to rely on senses other than sight, to try to identify their tree.
In school teams, participants draw a bird’s eye view map of their school, marking in important features such as classrooms and trees. In the reflection part of the lesson, participants trace and cut around their handprint, writing one important aspect about trees they remember from the lesson. From here, each school creates a tree-poster using their handprints as leaves.
This varied programme appeals to all types of learners, elevating nature’s importance alongside the man-made environment. The Children in the Wilderness initiative is run in partnership with Peace Parks Foundation and Simalaha Community Conservancy, and with grateful thanks to MAVA Fondation pour La Nature and COmON Foundation for their generous donation to fund this project.
