Born Free/Shamwari Education Blog – October 2011
This is probably the latest my blog has ever been but that is because it has been quite an eventful month! We have been super busy with schools visiting the centre, fundraisers happening and a whole lot of other things. I have also decided to study teaching so I have been writing exams this month. One exam left and then I am halfway through my qualification. It has really opened my eyes to the education system of South Africa and is really going to help me contribute more to our education programme.
General
CTI College (that trains students for careers in hospitality) from Port Elizabeth visited us for the first time. We did a special presentation on the different departments, positions and their roles in Shamwari Game Reserve and the Born Free Foundation. Students were also taken on to see one of the lodges.
On 22/10/2011 Avis staff came for an outing to partake in our education programme and to see what the donated kombi gets used for. They followed the same program we do with schools but ended with a finger lunch at Long Lee. Feedback was very good and all were impressed with the work we do. For the past couple of years Avis has sponsored our education programme with a kombi. The kombi gets replaced ever 60 000km and Avis covers all the service and maintenance costs. If it wasn’t for this sponsorship we would have a very limited education programme and certainly would not be able to do all the community work we do. The kombi is also used to help transport local children to our education centre. We were very happy to have the team out here to show them all the good work their kombi does!
- The Avis PE team with our much appreciated kombi
FGASA workshops
Born Free employee and one of the FGASA Workshop students, Martin Miritiawo wrote his exam on 01/10/2011 and passed with 85%! Our team is very proud of him and he is putting his new knowledge to good use as he is now helping us out in the education department teaching all of the children coming to the centre about the abundant wildlife of Shamwari. Four of the other students will be writing on 7 November 2011 we will report back on their results in the next blog.
- Martin (back left) with a school group
Eco-Schools
Portfolios were due on 31 October 2011 so schools have been hard at work in getting them ready. If all goes well all four schools will be awarded their green flag status then all the schools in
Paterson will be Eco-friendly! It has always been one of my ambitions to see a rural town with all the schools waving green flags so I am quite excited to this come true! On 28 October 2011 we had our annual clean up day in Paterson with all the schools. Well I’d be lying if I said that it wasn’t an eventful one! Before it even started I stepped on a glass bottle while rallying up the troops and cut my foot quite badly. One of the teachers rushed me to the doctor to get stitches. But I was not disappointed on my return I came back to find a HEAP of black bags that they did without me. A proud moment for me as I am seeing how the schools are starting go forward and do things on their own!
This month we had Morningside High School, an Eco-School from Port Elizabeth came for a special biodiversity programme at the centre. A presentation was done to show them the importance of and threats to biodiversity, as well as what can be done to conserve it, and afterwards they were given a spekboom to plant at their school. They were so motivated that they decided to start an indigenous garden at their school.
- Morning Side High and there spekboom... the first edition to their new indigenous garden
World Wide Experience Volunteers
The WWE volunteers were quite busy with some exciting things this month like animal translocations but I was lucky enough to steal for them for one important project. As one of their Eco-Schools projects Sandisulwazi High School decided to remove all the alien plants in their school garden and replace them with indigenous ones. This was quite a task but the volunteers were there to help. All the alien plants were removed and spekboom saplings (cultivated by the volunteers) were planted instead. It was a good team effort from the volunteers and the school’s Eco-club. They really enjoy working with volunteers and are quite interested in learning more about the different countries they come from. Everyone there was told about the threats of alien vegetation and the importance of planting indigenous plants so that all the workers knew about the importance of this job.
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