Winner — Schools and institutions: The Birches Pre-Primary School
When the Birches Pre-Primary School garden and environmental project started in 1993, few learners showed interest.
Today, almost all in the school have embraced it. ‘And there’s so much to learn and so much to do here every day”, says Scilla Edmonds, the principal of the school, which is in KwaZulu-Natal.
She heads up the school’s environmental project and its key role is to direct environmental activities, but most of the work is done by teachers, learners and groundspeople, who keep the projects alive. ‘We’ve been involved in environmental issues since 1993. When the school couldn’t raise enough funds to build sports facilities, we decided to start a garden instead,” says Edmonds.
The school boasts an overall environmental project, which includes water conservation, organic vegetable gardening, energy reduction, recycling and many other environmental projects. ‘We recycle almost everything — batteries, glass, paper, cans and recently we started recycling old printer cartridges,” says Edmonds.
The proceeds pay for library books and are reinvested into other green projects on the school grounds. The monthly Collect-a-Can competition, Mondi paper and green office cartridge-recycling projects generate between R300 and R1 000 a month.
Recycling proceeds have also paid for the project’s maintenance manager to go on an intensive gardening course. Learners have been shown how ”keeping green” reaps rewards.
Recently the school was awarded its fifth eco-school green flag by the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (Wessa). Last year the school won an environmental award from the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality.
In 2006 the school won a Collect-a-Can competition, collecting a total of 206 712 cans. This won the school an amount of R6 000. Part of this money went towards planting a new indigenous garden at the entrance of the school.
The garden is divided into four parts: a succulent section called the lizard garden; a bird garden, which is a grasslands section; a forest butterfly garden; and a wetland area called the frog garden.
At present, grade R children run their own indigenous nursery and in August each year they run the business entirely on their own, using numeracy, literacy and life skills learned in the classroom.
Edmonds says the motivation to start this project came from her upbringing in Botswana. ‘When you start something new, a lot of people are reluctant to join in but as time goes on they somehow become interested — that’s how our environmental project grew.I started with one group — today there are five groups.”
The Birches project has been lauded for its focus on developing an environmental culture at school level and for exposing children to the importance of a cleaner environment.
Edmonds’s energy and determination have also been lauded as remarkable.
A leafy oasis
Special commendation — Schools and institutions: Khomanani Primary School
The Khomanani Primary School’s environmental projects have gradually turned barren and grey schoolgrounds into a leafy oasis in Diepkloof, Soweto.
A few years ago the school had no proper sports grounds, no vegetable gardens, its toilets were blocked, it had leaky taps and there were no lights.
Today, all this has changed, thanks to a project initiated in 2002 by the departments of agriculture and education.
Khomanani Primary School was recently commended for its efforts and for incorporating the programme into its curriculum.
The school started a vegetable garden, which parents, pupils and teachers maintain. The vegetables are used in the school’s feeding scheme.
For the sake of saving water, an indigenous garden was planted. There is also a herb garden and a variety of herbs are now available for cooking and medicinal needs.
A nearby park, which was used as a dumping area, was adopted by the school and cleaned up. Pupils use this area to play after school while waiting for transport.
The school building had a history of leaky taps and toilets, but now the children are provided with drinking water in their classrooms, using buckets and cups.
The taps have been fixed. Khomanani recycles most of its waste material such as toothpaste containers, washing powder boxes, paper and plastic bags.
The school also regularly invites parents for cleaning campaigns. It has formed parents’ committees, selected class representatives and formed a pupils’ garden club