Pride in environmental awareness is what drives a school in northern KwaZulu-Natal, writes Niki Moore
It’s a school in the forest the indigenous Dukuduku Forest on the verge of the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park. The school is called Ubuhle bemvelo (the beauty of nature) to reflect its location within a World Heritage Site.
The teachers and pupils are aware of their status as “learners in the green”. And with the fillip of pride that goes with being something special, the school body has fought against great odds to make their school special as well.
Ubuhle bemvelo has become a tourist attraction. Visitors to the lake are often invited to visit the school, and the headmaster, Bhekithemba Nomandla, has made sure that all opportunities are seized and used to their fullest extent.
“We work closely with [KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife official] Zac Maseko on environmental issues,” says Nomandla. “He has helped us set up a nursery so that the pupils can grow indigenous trees. We also have two active conservation groups at the school.”
The school’s conservation groups go on regular field trips into the forest and the park, under the guidance of wildlife officials, to learn more about their green heritage. They also form hacking parties to clear alien growth and coordinate lessons to study animals, birds and plants.
“These kids are very keen,” says Maseko. “I am constantly surprised by how much enthusiasm they have. And often they are the ones who come up with ideas for projects and field trips.”
The enthusiasm of the children has made them an attractive target for well-wishers. An American visitor to the school was so taken with the youngsters that he donated a photocopy machine. The Wildlands Trust, an environmental and community development agency, provided the funding for a science laboratory and Unilever in Durban supplied computers for a computer-study centre. Money has also been made available by the KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife Community Levy for environmentally related projects.
On Arbour Day the school had MEC for Agriculture Narend Singh as a guest to plant a tree. “By supporting the school I am reinforcing its value as a centre for conservation awareness and where is a more suitable place to plant an indigenous tree than inside a threatened indigenous forest?” Singh said during his visit to the school.
The Living Lakes Foundation a multinational foundation that supports the environmental health of lakes worldwide has worked with the school’s teachers to create a culture of environmental thought.
Teachers are encouraged to think of their environment and more specifically the forest and lake that surround them when they are preparing the day’s lessons. In this way the knowledge and appreciation of their natural heritage becomes a way of life.
The school has as curious a history as the forest within which it stands. In the late 1980s the increasing number of squatters who were clearing large tracts of the forest caused alarm among conservationists especially as it is one of the last indigenous forests of Southern Africa and just happens to be adjacent to a world-famous wetland system.
Protracted negotiations led to a portion of the forest being made available for settlement. This 180ha piece had been part of a pine plantation and so was already cleared. In 1993 the community obtained funds from the Department of Education to build a primary school and a year later expanded it to include a high school.
But it was when Nomandla took over the reins as headmaster in 1998 that things started to cook.
“I have a philosophy,” he says. “I want to see learners learning, teachers teaching and parents supporting the school.”
He learned very quickly that the easiest way to make pupils, teachers and parents proud of their school was to capitalise on their burgeoning environmental awareness.
Nomandla is from the nearby Zululand town of Mtubatuba. After obtaining his teaching diploma in 1992, he taught Zulu in Nongoma for a year and then returned to his hometown to take up a teaching post in the new school.
“I am a product of Bantu education,” he says, “and even at the time I understood the tremendous gaps in our education. I want to make sure that my pupils get the best opportunities they can.
“It is our time now. We must grasp this time and make the best of it.”
However, the donations the school receives are invariably for specific projects and it is difficult to find volunteers who are prepared to help see projects through.
“I find that people like parents and members of the community don’t want to help at the school unless they get paid,” says Nomandla.
“Nobody volunteers for any type of work. And we do not have money to pay people. One of my tasks is to educate the community into realising that they are assuring a better future for themselves if they help the school, instead of asking for money.”
Nomandla is already inculcating a sense of community service among his pupils. Various development groups have enlisted the aid of the schoolchildren in doing research.
Dr Angela Impey, from the University of Natal, is gathering oral history from the residents of Dukuduku as part of a cultural history project. The schoolchildren have been taught how to record and interpret the memories of the old people, in order to write them down and contextualise them before they are lost forever.
And by bringing the outside world in, Nomandla is ensuring that his pupils are just as aware that “there is a big world beyond the forest”.