Well done to all the schools, businesses, partners and funders that joined people from all over the world to celebrate Clean Up month in September. October brings a host of new environmental calendar events – let us know what you will be getting up to. Enjoy our September snippet.
Kind regards,
Cindy and the team
WE GOT 2ND PLACE IN THE INTERNATIONAL YRE COMPETITION!!
The International Jury has assessed all the finalists for the international YRE competition, all the awarded entries have been selected. Over 16 000 entries were received for the international YRE competition. All entries awarded for this year’s competition showcased the YRE students’ great reporting skills, journalist talent and mostly the understanding of complex environmental issues that exist and affect their local communities.
We would like to congratulate our WESSA YRE students who won the competition for different media categories. Isobel Govender-Bateman was placed 2nd in the video category (11-14 years) for her video titled Hands-on river revival: A community Fixing Their Environment! and Sara Gopal received an Honourable Mention in the article category (15-18 years) for her article titled Pollution: A Matter of Life and Death. Well done young champs you have made us all proud!!!
CELEBRATING NATIONAL CLEAN-UP AND RECYCLING WEEK AND INTERNATIONAL COASTAL CLEAN-UP DAY
To celebrate National Clean-Up and Recycling Week (14-18 September 2020), two of our Gauteng Eco-Schools (Jiyana Secondary School and Moduopo Primary School) joined forces to do a clean-up and raise some awareness in their community. A well-organised event spearheaded by Mrs Rose Magaya and Mrs Christina Lephalala attracted various stakeholders and the municipality.
The representatives from the environmental organisations urged the community to take responsibility for their surroundings and warned the residents about health hazards emanating from exposure and ingestion of toxic waste. The learners marched and chanted songs which informed the community to 'REDUCE, REUSE and RECYCLE" household waste.
Cleaning up an area in Tembisa
Learners engaging with community members about the consequences of an unhealthy community
Learners bringing a clear message that they want a healthy environment
We joined the fight for clean oceans and participated in the International Coastal Clean-up
which was held on the 19th of September 2020 at Treasure Beach in Bluff Durban. A total amount of 192kg of waste was collected.
Even Ninja the Turtle came out to support the beach clean-up!
Some of the waste collected
CHRIS HANI DISTRICT MUNICIPALITY (CHDM) PROJECT
The Rural Sustainable Villages project of the Chris Hani District Municipality (CHDM) is a multi-facet programme focusing on Energy, Water and Food nexus components. The project is implemented in 11 schools across the district with 5 main schools and 6 schools as Eco-schools. The main aim of the project is the installation of sustainable technologies that assist the schools with their everyday life while providing an option for sustainable use of our natural resources.
Some of the exciting projects installed in the schools include:
Biogas systems that generate usable gas through the use of agricultural waste and faecal waste
Ochards (Different fruit trees planted in schools)
Solar geysers
Food gardens
Indigenous gardens
The project has also expanded to components of community development through the selection and training of 7 youths in the field of entrepreneurship. The youth will start their own businesses linked to the sustainable technologies installed in the schools.
OUR WESSA COVID-19 SUPPORT CONTINUES WITH SCHOOLS ACROSS THE COUNTRY
GAUTENG
We supported 25 schools across the Gauteng province with much-needed PPE, hands-free hygiene systems, seedlings to boost their food gardens and lesson plans and posters for teachers. We demonstrated how to use the hygiene systems, an innovative tool we designed with an Engineer that allows learners to wash their hands without touching any part of the system. We would like to thank our Gauteng funders, AECI, Italtile Ceramics and Ceramic Industries for making this possible.
MPUMALANGA
In Mpumalanga, we visited 17 Eco-Schools in eMalahleni and tested our new Ford Ranger 4X4 donated by the Ford Wildlife Foundation (FWF). This donation from the FWF enabled us to deliver much needed Covid-19 resources to the 17 Eco-School. The Greenhouse tunnels we installed two months ago are already providing food to vulnerable learners and supplementing the school nutrition programme. We also want to thank Glencore for enabling us to support these schools.
FREE STATE
We visited 20 Eco-Schools in Qwa Qwa, funded by the MRP Foundation, to rejuvenating their school food gardens after the lockdown. Learners also enjoyed an outdoor gardening lesson and got creative with designing a tyre food garden.
CALL TO TEACHERS!!
The Office for Climate Education (OCE) works towards producing educational resources about climate change that teachers anywhere in the world could benefit from, use directly or adapt them in their classroom. The OCE is currently working on their next lesson plan dealing with "Climate Change and Land". They need help testing their activities before publication (see attachment). The resources are targeting primary and high school and can be done by science or non-science teachers depending on the topic. If you, as an Eco-Schools teacher, are interested, it could be a very interesting way of contributing to the development of educational resources that would hopefully reach a high number of teachers and tackle the very important matter of climate change.
Please contact Cindy (cindy.cloete@wessa.co.za) for more info on how to get involved as a South African Eco-Schools teacher.
DON’T FORGET ABOUT TOMORROW’S WEBINAR!
Food Sovereignty post Covid-19 through the empowerment of schools
