Born Free Foundation - Keep Wildlife in the Wild

By Christine Le Roux, Education Manager

It has been a busy month so I have much to blog about!

Schools

Our education program is getting busy as more and more schools are going on their field trips. Our busy term will be coming up soon when most of the schools do their outings. This month we had 157 learners visit our centre. We also had a girl school from Uitenhage called Riebeek College for a special program on biomes and biodiversity, not an easy topic to get teenagers excited about but my presentations seemed to have done the trick. They are all wanting to start and join an environmental club at their school and they want their school to join the Eco-Schools program!!!

We assisted the Sandisulwazi High School learners with transport with our Avis kombi to Port Elizabeth for an amazing and massive career exhibition where thousands of Grade 12 learners were present. The whole aim of the exhibition was to show learners all the careers, universities and bursaries available to encourage them to study further. It was really interesting and the learners left very motivated to get their Grade 12 certificate and study further. They are determined to be the first group in the history of their school to all get their Grade 12 certificate (since the implementation of the Eco-Schools project it has gone up from 19 to 60%)! I made a deal with them that I would get someone sponsor them matric jackets if they all make it (so I hope that I will find someone who sponsor them as I am pretty sure they are all going to pass).

Global Friends

My library is the last project for the Global Friends Grant I have completed all the other ones and I have truly saved the best (and biggest for last). We located  a container which is already converted to use as our library it is however going to cost 2000 pounds which is cheap but still a lot as is all funding I pretty much have for the project but I am determined to find funding from where ever I can to turn this library into a great success. World Wide Experience (WWE) has donated two portable CD players (and huge new TV and DVD player for our Julie Ward Education Centre) and I got some really good books at a great discount so it is coming along. Abagail our Centre Manager’s mom also kindly donated a set of Afrikaans (one of our official languages) Encyclopaedias so before the end of the year we should have our multimedia amazing library!

The two of WWE students came with me to Hendrik Kanise Combined School to deliver the benches they helped me make for their Environmental Club house and sickroom. This project is now finalised. To date we have donated R8000 worth of textbooks, a sign, bed with mattress bedding and mat, fully equipped first aid box, 4 wooden benches, TV and DVD player for the sickroom and environmental clubhouse. Afterwards we planted some trees at their school.

Eco-schools

We had our monthly meeting as usual to do all of our planning, I must say I really enjoy these meeting and getting a chance to get all the teachers together. We have all become good friends since the project and all the teachers have said that one of the benefits of the program is that it has led the local schools to work together which is nice for me to see as well.

I did the same biomes and biodiversity presentation at Hendrik Kanise Combined School in Alicedale (one of our Eco-Schools) this month and the learners seemed to enjoy it. I made a deal with them that if everyone in their class gets over 80% for their class test they can come to partake in our Education program and see biodiversity! I have to formulate a project for them which I am quite excited about and a bit nervous as I have never done something like it before. I want to study teaching this year so it is all good practise.

On 22 March 2011 it was World Water Day and we made a huge and truly international celebration! In the morning 4 of the WWE students (from the UK and Holland) and Pooja (who has her own conservation project in India and does a lot of environmental education there) visited Môreson Primary School in Paterson. Each student (including myself) were each assigned with a Grade 1 class where did a lesson on the importance of water and how and why we should use it wisely. We also played a fun water board game with them afterwards. Then we tackled the Grade 2s and 3s and did a water audit with them which was A LOT of fun! We measured how much water we waste when leaving the tap running while brushing teeth, washing hands, washing dishes and drinking water. Then we looked into alternative ways to do these activities in which the least amount of water is used and none is wasted!

In the afternoon I had the three Marine Week winners from last year from Paterson (see October 2010 blog) present their water saving policy to the guests at all the lodges on Shamwari. The guests really enjoyed it and so did the learners even though they were more than a bit nervous at first.

FGASA Workshops

Workshops are going extremely well and I am really enjoying this group of students and it also nice having Headman and Martin our animal care guys join the workshops. This month we covered quite a lot! We focussed mostly on plants, biomes of South Africa, ecology and taxonomy. I showed them how to identify trees and grasses. We had a really fun session looking at our own little pond ecosystem at the Jean Byrd Centre thanks to all the rain we’ve recently had.