BORN FREE/SHAMWARI EDUCATION BLOG – AUGUST 2011
Wow what an exciting and busy month!!! First things first! We finally have a new education vehicle! This is such a great surprise that Born Free and Shamwari could manage to purchase this vehicle for us in such difficult economic times! Our old vehicle was constantly breaking and had no roll cage or seat belts. Our lovely new vehicle is not only safer it is much more comfortable. It is really encouraging to work for a wildlife charity and private game reserve that cares so much about Environmental Education and who see its importance in conservation.
- Our lovely new truck!
Global Friends
The final part of the library project is setting up internet. A modem will cost us R1000.00, we are currently looking for sponsorship but so far everyone has declined.
Eco-Schools
On 19 August 2011 we had a biodiversity workshop which was held with WESSA and Engen in Addo National Park, the principal, a teacher and old learner from Hendrik Kanise Combined School attended the workshop. They learnt all about the importance of Biodiversity and afterwards teachers went on a game drive in the park.
- Group at the biodiversity workshop in Addo National Park
Hendrik Kanise Combined School’s eco-club adopted the Jean Byrd medicinal garden started in 2008 as one of their projects. On the same day they went to clean up the garden and one of the FGASA students did a demonstration with them on some of the uses of the plants. We hope to start a garden at our Julie Ward Centre soon.
- Medicinal garden at the Jean Byrd Centre
- FGASA student Buyile teaches the learners about the uses of the plants in the garden and how to prepare the medicine
Together with WESSA I am assisting the Hopewell Conservation Trust (one of the reserves Shamwari’s Conservation team is consulting at) with setting up the Eco-schools program at two of the neighboring schools. A meeting was held at WESSA and then at Molly Blackburn High School.
The school is very excited to join the program and I am happy to get more schools on board.
On 24 October 2011 we had all the Eco-Schools co-ordinators (teachers) from Grahamstown Makana node came to our Julie Ward Centre for a workshop. They were all very motivated and enjoyed their time there even though they couldn’t go on game drive because of bad weather. The teachers are excited to bring their learners for a free visit to our education centre.
We had our monthly meeting on Wednesday 31/08/2011 to discuss the busy year ahead – what a lot we have coming up next month!
Don’t miss the September blog going to be jam packed with Eco-Schools activities!!!!
The meeting was held at Khaya Khulu Primary School in Paterson.
- Learners get creative with recycling by making a photo frame out of cardboard.
- The soccer team won their school a tank to harvest rainwater
FGASA Workshop
The FGASA official exam will be written on 01/10/2011, 9 students will be writing the exam (in 2010 it was 3). Everyone is working very hard at preparing to make sure they all pass. They need 75% to pass but we are all confident that their hard work will pay off and they will pass.
Worldwide Experience and Shamwari Conservation Experience Volunteers
This month I started a new project with the volunteers…a worm farm!!!! The learners have a nursery where they grow trees (for vegetation rehabilitation in the reserve and to plant at our schools) and vegetable seedlings (for community and school gardens) and a great way of making compost and liquid fertilizer is a worm farm. These are specialised earthworms that breakdown organic material (such as kitchen scraps) into compost and they also produce a liquid called worm rum (or wee) that is very effective. 1000 worms can produce 1kg of compost a day!
The first step to setting up our worm farm was informing the volunteers about the importance of permaculture and growing your own organic vegetables. So I gave them a presentation on why we need to grow our own vegetables (environmental benefits, health and personal benefits) and I showed them how to grow them too! We then discussed how we were going to make the worm farm and what materials we needed.
Then we started getting everything together and I went to buy 1000 worms from a specialist in Port Elizabeth who gave me some good tips to share with the volunteers. Once we had everything we needed we made our worm farm. See pictures below for the steps on how to make a warm farm using recycled materials.
- Step 1: Place a sheet of corrugated iron below and make it slant using tyres/phone directory, bricks, etc.
- Step 2: Place a bottom layer of felt, newspaper or carpet for insulation and then your first tyre.
- Step3:Place a sheet of shade cloth or onion sack over the tyre and place another tyre on top followed by another sheet of shade cloth and at a third tyre
Step 4: Fill the third tyre with manure (not chicken), and/or compost or newspaper.
Make sure it is nice and soggy (not too wet but like a sponge).
- Step 5: Now you can add the worms! After adding the worms place another tyre on top (with no separation between top two tyres).
This is a pilot project that we would like to implement at all our eco-schools to help with their vegetable gardens. Once the project is established and we are worm farm specialists the volunteers are going to help me put up worm farms at the schools and train the schools on how to care for them.
It is definitely spring and the time for gardening as not only are the volunteers helping with community and school vegetable gardens they are also going to start a medicinal garden at our Julie Ward Centre and have already started clearing an area in which to do this. The aim of this garden is to teach learners not only about their heritage and culture but also about the importance of biodiversity and conserving natural vegetation. See September 2011 blog to follow the progress of the garden.
And seeing that is Spring here are some photos of our centres and Paterson and all the beautiful flowers:
- Julie Ward Centre
- Jean Byrd Centre
- Paterson
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