Green School Programs
Green work group with participation of the teachers representatives held regularly in green schools. On 7th of March 2017, The teachers mentioned that the students from the green schools had been able to implement the important subjects of Health and Environmental protection ways, taught by the teachers, as part of green work groups. One of the items to be implemented was environmental cleanliness; the school compound has been kept clean through managing of garbage by the students every day.
Another positive feedback we received was that the children are now more concerned about health, and are now washing hands at all times after visiting the toilet and also before each meal. Finally, hygiene issues are well practiced among the children than before.
The other agenda at Children Garden school was to plan for an art contest among the children. We issued a number of recycled receipt book back covers for the children to use in the art contest. We also gave out 10 packs of crayons which are to be shared among the children. The teachers are to select a theme for the art contest from the following:
- world without garbage
- water and life
- clean environment at school
- let’s get together and stay healthy
DAGORETTI MUSLIM PRIMARY SCHOOL
NATURE GUARDS GATHERING
As per our health and environmental program at the Kenyan governmental schools, each school will be a given the opportunity to be a green school and the students as nature guards will protect their environment to have a safe and clean eco system. In this way after we had done our pre-evaluation as well as some training and green activities at Dagoretti Muslim primary school, the foundation is ready for the students to join and help their schools to transform into a green school.
The teachers have selected two of the best students from each class, one boy and one girl to be as the leaders of their classes. The students that were selected are willing as well as enthusiastic about this project and the opportunity to share with their respective classes the knowledge about environmental health as well as its abundant wealth. They will do research with the help of their teachers to get sufficient information to share with their classes during the course of the upcoming weeks.
These Natures Guards will be preparing talks and discussions on the importance of all the elements of nature that are necessary for a healthy and prospering environment, the benefits of using water economically as well as using its more frequently for hygiene purposes and some methods in which they can work as teams and communities to reduce, recycle, consume and produce nature friendly degradable products to a more efficient on a national level.
They also will be contact with other students, collect their ideas and suggestion about their challenges, problems and issues about the health and environment matters. We will be hosting a weekly meeting with these Nature guards to train them as well as to exchange the data and information about weekly updates and progresses.
Planning for the Green festival
With the help of children gardens, teachers and the head teacher of Dagoretti Muslim primary school, we were able to come up with activities that will take place during the green festival at the end of March 2017.
We are going to plan the following activities:
- Boy & girls football matches for both schools, with health & environment message
- Rewarding the top students in the art contest
- Clean-up in and outside the school compound
- Presentation about health and environment from both schools.
- Two singing teams, from each school about heath and environmental issues.
The green festival took place on 28th of March at Dagoretti Muslim primary school.
It was meant to engage the students in the world environment day celebrations which marked the WED activities. As planned we were to have some activities like poems, comedy, songs, debate, and cleanup among others. The indoor activities were undertaken at the school hall which saw senior classes 7 and 8 attending the events.
Activities of the day
Drama
After the speech we were able to get student participating in environmental drama.The scene was of street children being exposed to harmful environment that losses their health at risk. They were also walking here and there interfering with tree seedlings cutting their feeble stem. And then what ended up is that the concerned authority came and gave some address on their action which saw them changing their habits and taking charge of cleaning and caring for the environment.
Song
The group that presented the song ” This is our environment “composed of pupils from different classes. The song was basically conveying a message of connecting people to nature which was in line with the theme of the year WED celebration. They told the audience how farmers, citizens, and all stakeholders among others should come together to promote nature stewardship. It also relied in information of the cause and effect, consequences of not protecting the mother earth. Speech from Kenya organization on environmental education(KOEE) We had a representative from Kenya Organization for Environment Education, Mr. David Wandabi who gave a talk after the second event. In his speech he gave a story of someone who kept accumulating waste in his nearest compound that led to the attraction of the stinging and biting animals like snake that bite one of the family member to an extent that the leg was to be amputated. With that the pupils were able to know the important of keeping their residential areas, homes, schools away from the animals by practicing good hygiene and minimizing landfills of waste in their environment.
Comedy
The last performed event was a closing comedy that brought on stage two young students making fun of the leaders of the country vocalists and speeches. They also did some comic on the urban life of different estates within Nairobi, that is slum life and ‘best estate’ life.
Clean Up
This was the only outdoor activity that we did to mark the celebration. We were introduced to class three pupils and after a brief explanation of what is expected of them, they were given gloves and the waste collection bag. They went round the school compound collecting all waste including plastic bags and bottles, waste paper among other wastes. They took them to the dumping sites and received some tokens for the job well done and appreciation.
Debate
This is the next event that followed. The theme of the environmental debate was “is waste good or bad? “To the effect we had both opposers and proposers giving four participants each with points supporting their taken sides. The judge was basing his awards on confidence, articulation of points and objective or relevancy of the debaters points. The opposes side emerged the best wait 17 points with the proposers side accumulating 16 points out of the possible 20 points.
Poems
We began with the poem whereby class 8west had a presentation of a poem that they did as a group in the podium. The title of the poem was “Our environment”. The students acted the poem on the message of waste management, how waste can be made profitable, the 3Rs of waste management strategy. They also mentioned an environmental icon in Kenya professor Wangari Mathai and her contribution to the management of nature in Kenya. The poem was educative to the audience on how they can change their attitude towards environment.
Speech from Kenya organization on environmental education(KOEE)
We had a representative from Kenya Organization for Environment Education, Mr David Wandabi who gave a talk after the second event. In his speech, he gave a story of someone who kept accumulating waste in his nearest compound that led to the attraction of the stinging and biting animals like snakes that bit one of the family members to an extent that the leg was to be amputated. With that, the pupils were able to know the importance of keeping their residential areas, homes, schools away from the animals by practising good hygiene and minimizing landfills of waste in their environment.
We carried out the assessment of the quality of the environment of the school basing our audit on the sanitation of the school, classrooms cleanliness, and general environment among other resources within the school.
Children's Garden School Evaluation
Green Africa Global Foundation together with the Iran medical clinic in Kenya and Shakhes Pajouh Research Institute created an evaluation plan regarding environmental and healthcare issues for 200 primary students. A group of facilitators gave out questionnaires to students with content about health care, water, sanitation and waste management.
Analysis of all the information gathered within the targeted group of students was carried out in order to identify and discuss the factors that negatively or positively affect the evaluation’s outcome regarding the environment, so that a significant change could be done with time.
Our next project was much more practical where by facilitators educated the students using adequate material concerning the most important and fundamental issues that they face based on their answers from the questionnaires. Issues such as healthcare, water, sanitation and waste management will be addressed.
- Improving the level of awareness of Pupils on the importance of clean and sustainable environment and their habitat and reducing pollution .
- Pupils can transfer their knowledge into positive environmental actions in their own schools and communities.
- Children Garden School
- Dagoretti Muslim Primary School
- HGM School
