Reduced income, school closures and the need for social distancing has required a major readjustment for conservation education providers across the continent. Lapalala Wilderness School in South Africa runs residential courses for local school children, visits more than 40 schools, mentors youth and trains teachers. They have been forced to suspend all these programmes. Despite the challenges the Lapalala team remains very active. Each working close to their homes, they have set up environmental education programmes on eight different community radio stations. This has broadened their audience as older radio listeners as well as school age are now learning about topics ranging from nature conservation and cultural heritage, to the impact of mining, Covid-19, climate change and career guidance.
The team have made Covid-secure deliveries of conservation education materials, including PACE, to ensure that students stay connected,
Lapalala educators are also arranging to join rural schools after re-opening, to help cover the increased workload from having social distance classrooms and catch up lost time.
Lapalala Wilderness School is in the breath taking Waterburg Reserve, in the Limpopo Province, in the north of South Africa. Read more about them at www.lwschool.org.