We are thankful that finally, normal activities, covid-aware and covid-secure have started to resume.
After months of school closures pupils in exam years are now back into their classrooms in Zimbabwe, with the rest of students scheduled to return in November. Responding to the reduced restrictions Palloma Pachiti from Sebakwe Conservation Education Centre in the Midlands has already arranged PACE training for key educators for next month. Lead teachers from Carbon Green Africa and SAVE Valley Conservancy sites are included in Palloma’s training plans, work that has been delayed for months due to covid-restrictions.
In Cameroon Berinyuy Verye Marius set to work last month. Marius introduced PACE to pedagogic animators from Catholic education colleges during their six day national seminar in Yaounde. The participants came from fifteen different colleges, English speaking colleges located in the french speaking East, Centre, Adamoua, Far North, Littoral, and West Regions of Cameroon. These include sprawling urban areas, small towns and rural communities in zones that range from equatorial rain forest, coastal and mangrove, tropical volcanic highlands through to arid Sahel. Despite this diversity issues of deforestation and climate change are effecting them all as well as seriously impacting on the fantastic natural habitats and wildlife populations. Cameroon is home to lowland gorilla, chimp, mandrill, forest and savanah elephant, lion, leopard and much more.
These teachers were all hearing about PACE for the first time and exhibited a lot of interest on ways they were shown for inserting the content and activities into their various subject areas. Marius said they shall be seeing how to create Environmental Clubs, and have lined up PACE resources to guide the club activities.
New teaching materials are on the way to Zimbabwe, Cameroon and other partners this week. In challenging times people can too easily choose unsustainable options – 2020 has been a hugely challenging year, it is critical that we keep environment and sustainability issues on everyone’s radar.
Huge thanks to the energy and commitment of educators on the ground.