We sent nearly 200 kg of Conservation Education materials to partners across west, central, east and southern Africa in the past 6 months. A first step for the recipients is often to organise educator training, and it is a joy to see teachers appreciating PACE resources, planning ways to apply the content and engage young people with conservation. There is a particular pleasure however, witnessing the children and young people themselves, absorbed in their own conservation projects, making use of the ideas and knowledge they have received. And they do make use of information and ideas received, again and again the message we get is that young people are making a difference, and are committed to doing even more. Emmanuel Stephens Lekundayo manages the Vijana na Mazingira // Youth and the Environment project in Tanzania. VIMA works with youth in a remote rural region south of Katavi National Park, in western Tanzania. They received PACE materials in August last year: the Green and Sustainable Nursery Kit, used to make tree nursery, school and community gardens more environmentally friendly, as well as films and Action sheets on conservation farming and associated techniques.
Emmanuel recently reported on “a few things that we have learned from the materials and that the young people have maximally achieved. These include successfully producing compost, setting up tree nurseries, producing and planting out Gliricidia sepium saplings. The children nursed the seedlings, using compost they produced in the school nursery (pictured below). They are targeting to produce and plant 10,000 tree saplings in these sites. In the dry season the students (and village women also) will start container farming and agro-forestry. We have used the Mulching Action sheet and made plans to apply mulch in the dry season when water is scarce in the area. As this rainy season progresses we’ll be using the Pest and Disease Control action sheets as well.”
A full list of PACE action sheets and other materials is available at www.paceproject.net
You can learn more about Vijana na Mazingira at – www.lcmo.or.tz
