BORDER-KEI REGION
Enviro Centre, Nahoon Estuary Nature Reserve, Blue Waters Road, Beacon Bay 5241, East London
P.O.Box 2909, Beacon Bay 5205, East London
Tel: +27 43 7485798
Fax: +27 43 7485816

Email envirocentre@wessabk.co.za

Regional Manager: Laura Conde-Aller
Regional Chairperson: Jimmy Calder

ECO-SCHOOLS EASTERN CAPE REGIONAL CO-ORDINATION
Final Report 2007: June 2007 - December 2007
Download here...

Border Buzz March 08 E-S Awards [192kb]

Border Buzz March 08 byletts [642kb]

Border-Kei Region: December 2007 – March 2008

1. Compass

• EE Strategy: As from 2007 the Region has been working on grouping the EE activities undertaken in the Border Kei and developing the EE strategy for the forthcoming years. The EE program has identified the following sub-programs or units and plans for implementation, monitoring and evaluation:

• à Natural Resource Management
  • EE Centres
  • Sustainable Forest Management
  • Coastal & Marine
  • Freshwater (including Wetlands)
    
• à Sustainable Livelihoods
  • Health Promotion
  • Food Gardens
    
• à Environmental Management & Sustainable Living.
  • Energy.
  • Waste.
    
• à Education & Training (Courses and Resource Materials). Courses that will become available are:
  • The EETDP Learnership.
  • Environmental Educators Course.
  • Alternative Energy and Climate Change.
  • Rhodes University Schools and Sustainability Course for Teachers.
  • Rhodes/Gold Fields Certificate in Environmental Education.

- New staff: In order to fulfil the above programs, the Region has had to employ additional staff from the beginning of 2008. This includes a full-time member for the Port St Johns office based at the Msumbuvu Nursery.

2. Cash

• An ‘Income and Expenditure' statement for the 2007/08 financial year is attached in Appendix A.

3. Community

• Increasing membership has been a great challenge for the region. Several approaches were undertaken e.g. educational movies and events, with very little success. Our membership increase has been from our link to the Eco-Schools program. The New Year will remain as a challenge in this respect.

4. Core Business

• The Eco-Schools Program celebrated the schools' achievements for 2007 at the Regional Award Ceremony in Grahamstown, on Friday 14 March 2008. 42 schools received their WESSA/WWF-SA Eco-Schools awards. Representatives from schools in Butterworth, Coffee Bay , East London , Mdantsane, Port St Johns, Makana, Motherwell, Bethelsdorp and Tsitsikamma attended the Ceremony.
  
• Nkwezana Public School in East London became the first school in the Eastern Cape to receive the International Eco-Schools Flag , The International flag is awarded in recognition of 5 successful years of participation within the program.
  
• The Eco-Schools Capacity Building Program, funded through the National Lottery Fund completed its 1 st implementation phase, when 21 teachers obtained their Rhodes University Schools and Sustainability Certificate.

• Opportunities for networking and mobilizing existing resources have been strengthened by the Environmental Education Network Forum. EENF Meetings were organised in six districts of the Eastern Cape . The aim of EENF is to link institutions that are active in environmental education and practices. The EENF is still too new to pin-point any significant achievements, however, the various stakeholders, from all the districts concerned, have been involved in planning a joint action for the coming World Environment Week (2-6 June 2008). Partnership clearly signals the possibilities that can be achieved through a synergistic app roach . The EENF is seen as a potentially vibrant platform that will lead to sharing the responsibilities and resources in providing relevant environmental education and management interventions.

• The Eco-Schools Permaculture and Freshwater Node in Mdantsane ( East London ) has also successfully moved into the New Year with a re-focus on: home-based nutritional and health education, school feeding scheme, “healthy schools”, teaching and learning for a healthy environment and the corporate participation programs. Despite the slow start in 2008 the Mdantsane node is set to be a hive of activity through the planned sub-programs. The active and continued participation of WESSA in the Mdanstane Urban Agriculture Forum, is also placing the organisation in a strategic position, to network with practitioners involved in urban agriculture and greening programs in Mdantsane.

• The Eco-Schools Port St Johns Forest node has also celebrated their 2007 achievements at the Regional Award Ceremony in Grahamstown. Schools support visits have already been initiated in 2008. The new coordinator, Mbolekwa Jobela, has put great focus on bringing the different stakeholders together, in order to plan for the year ahead. What seems a successful partnership, is our new link to the Port St Johns Museum . Collectively, Eco-Schools and the Museum are planning to organize a schools exhibition, to show-case environmental education work undertaken by the schools. In addition, our partnership with Master Farmers continues to grow.

• The OOTB programme will be represented at the Scifest in Grahamstown this year. We will be running workshops based on various themes and this will be a great opportunity to expose the work that we have done so far. A regional workshop was held in the first term to get all the teachers involved in the program together. Unfortunately the attendance at the workshop was extremely poor. It was very disappointing, as a lot of time and effort had been put into the workshop, therefore generating much discussion afterwards. The new coordinator, Chaylene Jordan is planning to visit all the schools in the second term, to undertake an observation of an Out of the Box lesson that they have prepared. This, along with visits to monitor and support the work, that the teachers are doing with the components of the boxes, will make way for strengthened links between the coordinator and the schools that she will be working with.

• The Energy and Sustainability Program has been in the spotlight with an invitation being extended to Ms. Yolande Peter of Byletts Combined School , to present her project at the Sub-Saharan Africa Innovative Teachers Network (ITN ) Forum in Accra , Ghana towards the end of May. This has provided Ms Peter with the opportunity to showcase her work to some 50 teachers attending, from throughout this region. The ITN, facilitated through Microsoft, is an international forum designed to allow teachers to access information, share ideas and showcase their (innovative) lessons. This is the first time our region has been involved in the ITN , but it is something we will pursue into the future.
  
  The E&S Program (on a national level) has been selected as a finalist in the Energy Globe Awards. This is an international competition that highlights exceptional energy projects, being conducted throughout the world. This is the second time that the E&S program has been selected as a finalist (first in 2005, where we achieved a 2nd place) in this competition. The program highlighted in the Border-Kei region was the solar fruit drier project based in Port St Johns. In addition, the E&S program is expanding in the region, with the addition of the Schools Retrofit Program to be initiated during the next quarter.

• The Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF) 20/20 VISION has partnered with WESSA BKR to support or mentor schools entering the South African Youth Water Prize (SAYWP) competition. The schools are all preparing awareness campaigns relating to topics such as, water waste, pollution, and water-borne diseases within their communities. They will be submitting their portfolios to the DWAF office on the 9 May 2008 and are scheduled to make presentations on the 16 May 2008 for provincial competition.

• WESSA BKR will run the Enviro-Eds course this year for the first time. Provisional dates have been set for the Enviro-Eds course that will be conducted in the East London area, as part of the National Lotteries Program.
  
• Border-Kei region has participated in the collaborative Environmental Expo hosted by Mercedes Benz South Africa and involved partners: Buyisa E-Bag, Johnson and Johnson, Nestle, Amatola Water, BCM, DEAE&T, DWAF, IWMSA, Coca Cola and Arcus Gibbs. The event saw some 900 plus learners participating. Programs highlighted at the WESSA-BKR stand were ESKOM Energy and Sustainability Program, Old Mutual Out of the Box Program and Eco-Schools. In attendance were schools from each of these programs. The invitations were conducted through MBSA and it was good to see that these schools have received recognition from other organizations.

• The long-term partnership with Volunteer Africa 32 0 South (VA) has moved from strength to strength. The network of support to Byllets Combined School has grown to include Microsoft Innovative Teachers Network, The DELL Foundation, VA and WESSA-BKR.
  
  
• The relationship WESSA-BKR has developed with First National Battery ( FNB ) has moved from strength to strength. The FNB Safety, Health and Environment officer has offered to support the region where needed. Their expertise in environmental management practices are extensive and will form a sound partner when liaising with the Border-Kei Chamber of Business and small to medium sized businesses.

5. Communication
Our main channel for communication with the public still remains as the Border Buzz. Plans for making this publication available to a broader audience outside WESSA members are currently been discussed with National Office. The idea is to distribute the newsletter to any school or any interested individual and re-orientate the publication as an educational resource rather than a news-based one.

Report compiled by Laura Conde -Aller, WESSA Border Kei Regional Manager (laura@wessabk.co.za)

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