Attending the Green-Flag Award Ceremony
On Friday January 23rd I had the privilege to attend the Green Flag Award Ceremony for Eco-Schools in the Limpopo Province of South Africa. The ceremony was organised by Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa & World Wildlife Fund task team in association with De Beers Mines & Nampak.
The aims of having Eco-Schools in my view are to:
- Encourage sustainable development in education and management;
- Improve the environmental performance of schools by teaching learners the three “R’s”: RECYCLE, RE-USE, and REDUCE; and
- Uplift local communities through the knowledge gained by the learners.
The day started well; among the speakers were representatives from WWF-SA, Department of Education in the Limpopo Province, De Beers Mines, and lastly we were honoured with the presence of the reigning Miss Earth South Africa, Matapa Maila who happened to sit next to yours truly during the ceremony!! More importantly though, she is from Limpopo Province, which I think meant a lot to everybody, especially the learners.
Miss Earth South Africa was here to honor the learners.
All the speakers stressed the importance of community upliftment through education, especially environmental education.
The learners during the award ceremony.
The highlight of the day for me was listening to the learners recite poems they wrote for the day. They all sounded convincing; in addition their attitude showed that from then on there would be no going back. The learners also showed us some of the objects that they made from recycled materials, pictured below.
Crafts made from recycled materials.
Later during the day, best performing schools and educators were given awards for their hard work towards environmental education.
Although this is not directly relevant to the leopard research, I hope in the future I will have the opportunity to present the leopard work to the learners.
Naturally, Miss Earth wanted to sit by me during the ceremony.
Judging by the distance between me and the nearest person I must have been wearing my leopard perfume!
I would like to thank Cathy Dzerefos of Eco-Schools Limpopo Province for inviting AWF to the ceremony.
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February 6th, 2009 at 6:57 am
Dear Nakedi
Thank-you for honouring us by attending the ceremony and what a lovely suprise to see Eco-Schools on your blog. This was a much appreciated gift! I hope this is the start of a meaningful relationship with Eco-Schools. I think you are a wonderful role model and can encourage the youth to appreciate and research biodiversity by visiting the schools.
February 9th, 2009 at 4:07 am
Dear Nakedi
Thank you for the article. In case someone ask the name of the school from which the learners come from, they are from Rethušitšwe primary school in Phalaborwa. They are the ones that also displayed the artifact made from recycled material. Thank you again for the good work.
February 9th, 2009 at 5:37 am
Hi Nakedi, really enjoyed reading your sincere and amusing post! I never knew there was a Miss Earth SA – you make a handsome couple!
I believe there are many opportunities for you to work with Eco-Schools around leopards and why they are so critical to our eco-systems not to mention inspiring the youth of today that working in the environmental sector can be very fulfilling and interesting and cool – you certainly have a fascinating job!
best wishes
Bridget, National Eco-Schools coordinator
February 10th, 2009 at 6:07 am
Eco-Schools Team,
I am thankful to having had the opportunity to witness some of the wonderful work that you do. It will be an honour for me and I think a good thing for AWF to be involved in some of your initiatives.
I think you are doing a great job in getting the learners to realize that it is everybody’s responsibility to ensure that our planet and especially our continent with its beautiful landscapes and charming wildlife will endure forever.
Kind regards,
Nakedi
May 26th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
what is the life cycle of a leopard?
from meghna