Thembisa school receives WESSA award

Sun International’s two-year partnership with the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (WESSA) to create eco-classrooms and build environmental resilience in schools and their communities saw Gauteng schools win awards.

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Since the partnership started last year, eight schools in Gauteng, including Thembisa, completed health and safety workshops and were given bronze certificates awarded to schools in their first year of the WESSA Eco-Schools programme.

To achieve bronze status, schools need to implement one project under one of the eco-school themes.

The Sun International schools are participating in a health and well-being project focusing on environmental and social issues that affect health and safety, such as pollution, substance abuse, crime or gender-based violence (GBV).

The Gauteng WESSA Schools Programme awards ceremony was held on March 3 at St Andrew’s School for Girls.

The Sun International Eco-Schools project supports schools by creating eco-classrooms where learners, teachers and school leaders use the eco-schools’ seven-step framework to chart how to build resilience in their schools and communities.

The schools were awarded based on the workshops they ran in February addressing social issues in their communities, including substance abuse, poverty, crime and GBV.

Nationally, 17 schools are completing the programme.

The schools participating under Sun International’s Central Office included Ekukhanyisweni Primary, Tembisa Secondary, Moduopo Primary School and Ipontshe Primary School. Each launched substance abuse awareness campaigns.

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The students identified drugs and alcohol as one of the main contributors to poor health and safety in their communities, and with WESSA, helped the life skills teachers launch the campaigns in their schools, and 259 students and 16 teachers attended.

Siphesihle Home Based Care, in Thembisa, gave educational talks on substance abuse, its effect on health and well-being, and how to address it if students or someone they know is affected.

The sessions ended with role-play scenarios with volunteers enacting what to do and what not to do when someone is taking or selling drugs or abusing alcohol and how to respond to peer pressure.

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Based on social unrest and the death of a learner from a neighbouring school, both the schools under Carnival City – Buhlebemfundo Secondary and Tsimong Primary – tackled crime, GBV and substance abuse as their awareness campaigns.

Four teachers and 68 students attended.

WESSA will work closely with these schools in the future to address health and safety concerns based on the recent incident.

The two schools participating under Time Square – Mamelodi Pre-Vocational and Soshanguve Secondary – were asked to identify the main health and well-being issues in their communities and then discuss their causes and effects and possible solutions.

Both acknowledged substance abuse, crime, and poverty are issues impacting their communities, and the students created ‘vision posters’ and a plan to raise awareness at their schools.

Seventy-five students and six teachers attended the workshops.

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WESSA, with the assistance of Sun International, will continue to engage with the Gauteng schools and has visits and teacher workshops scheduled for next month.

In addition, the Young Reporters for the Environment (YRE) national competition was launched and the eight Gauteng schools have until March 31 to enter their submissions.

The requirements are to identify an environmental challenge in the community and report on it via a written article, photograph story, or short video and link it to one of three themes: climate change, pollution or biodiversity.

Winners in the national competition will be entered into the international YRE competition.

“We are proud of the students’ involvement because the more they understand the effects of issues, whether social or environmental, the better prepared they are to advocate change in their surroundings, and it is the youth who will make the change for a better future,” said the WESSA senior project manager, Nomfundo Ndlovu.

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“It is vital for the sustainability of projects that teachers and students manage them for themselves, because not only are they more invested, they gain soft skills such as self-confidence, leadership abilities, critical thinking and the will to act and advocate,” said Sun International’s SED manager Heidi Edson.

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