SUNRAE AND SAEON - Educating our youth

SAEON Ndlovu Node and SUNRAE (the Sustaining Natural Resources for the African Environment programme based at Wits Rural Facility near Hoedspruit) are currently exploring synergies in their respective programmes, and looking for ways and means to exploit these synergies in their joint venture into the future

Environmental education outreach is one such area. Given SUNRAE's limited resources, the education strategy they've adopted is to target learners. Community liaison officer Siyabulela Morris works mainly with local schools, and has introduced projects and programmes that convey the message that conservation and environmental management is not just about game reserves and people wearing khaki, it's right in your own homestead, in your own school, in your own community.

SUNRAE has introduced programmes that convey the message that conservation and environmental management is not just about game reserves and people wearing khaki, it's right in the learners' own homesteads, in their own schools, in their own communities. (Picture © Mitzi du Plessis)

Spearheading activities where he partners with the Kruger National Park (KNP) as well as private reserves in the area, Siyabulela organises free environmental education tours to these reserves, arranges environmental education camps for learners, and interventions like school greening competitions, debating competitions and permaculture projects.

"In one year the number of kids attending a school where we had made an intervention with permaculture food gardens nearly doubled as the kids now had food to eat and their parents were also benefiting some from the vegetable garden with which we were assisting them," says Siyabulela. Learners and local volunteers have been taught and encouraged to grow sustainable gardens and this has been incorporated into the curriculum. Orphans in the school have also benefited.

Siyabulela is moreover responsible for running Eco Clubs in the schools. Projects are linked to national initiatives such as World Environment Day, Water Week and National Science Week. On National Arbor Day, for instance, he gets donations from Trees for Africa and organises tree-planting ceremonies at all the schools.

The following anecdote says much about the success of Siyabulela's initiatives: Local school principal Daphne Mhaule says that more than 50% of her learners have planted trees at their homes as a direct result of the practical environmental education given by Siyabulela. She tells the story of one of her learners who came to her office crying because his uncle had chopped down a marula tree in their yard for firewood and refused to plant another.

Environmental education is but one of many areas in which SUNRAE and SAEON can join forces ... to become a driving force in working towards a sustainable future.