News & Events
SADC REEP updateJune 2010
The SADC Regional Environmental Education Programme is making headway with its decentralisation strategy, which is contributing to the sustainability of SADC REEP. This has seen several EE/ESD activities being conducted in SADC Member States using a cluster approach. The outcome is that more people have been and are being trained per participating country, and at a lower cost. Locating more activities in Member States also has the advantage of strengthening country-level EE/ESD processes, thus building the sustainability of environmental education practice in the SADC region.
SADC REEP facilitating EE/ESD work in SADC Member States
So far this year, Malawi has hosted the second cluster training of trainers’ Learning Support Materials Skills Development course since 2009 when Zimbabwe hosted the first one. SADC Member States which have participated so far in the LSM include Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Plans are underway for rolling out the Learning support materials skills training course to the third cluster involving South Africa, Swaziland Lesotho and Botswana; facilitating an environmental education attachment in Namibia and an EE course for Natural Resource management practitioners in Tanzania this year.
Publications
This year the SADC REEP supported the production of the 26th volume of the EEASA Journal which has focussed on climate change education, an important topical issue for southern Africa in the context of food security, water availability and accessibility, and health. In addition the SADC REEP has also supported the production of the EEASA monograph “Learning in a changing world: selected papers from the 4th World Environmental Education Congress”, and the 36th volume of the EEASA Bulletin. These publications are part of a package distributed to EEASA members in May 2010.
National Environmental Education Network representatives meeting at EEASA Conference
The SADC REEP will boost the forthcoming EEASA conference in Zambia (19-23 September 2010) by facilitating a Country Environmental Education Network representatives meeting during the conference, which will include a plenary presentation and discussion with the Network Representatives’ forum. It is hoped that this plenary session will contribute to improving the national –level networking in the SADC Member States.
Agriculture Education Colleges in Zimbabwe implement Environmental Education
Five Agriculture Education Colleges in Zimbabwe began implementing a course on strengthening environmental education in the Diploma in Agriculture programme beginning in January 2010. The colleges operate under the Ministry of Agriculture, in the Department of Agriculture Education and Farmer Training and are accredited by the University of Zimbabwe’s Faculty of Agriculture. The course was implemented after a baseline study involving meetings with College Principals, staff and inspection of libraries revealed the need for strengthening environmental teaching and learning, including input from a wide stakeholder consultation process, and consensus among the Colleges. The project is led by the Institute of Environmental Studies, with full participation of the parent Ministry and the Faculty of Agriculture. This ground-breaking project has a sustainability design since the environmental education is curriculum based and examinable, and has been based on observed needs relevant to the curriculum and the need for addressing land degradation in the surrounding environments of the colleges. A second course is expected to be implemented soon which will cover issues of conservation. One of the challenges facing the implementation of EE is the lack of adequate learning support materials, especially hardcopies as there is generally low availability of electronic equipment and internet accessibility. The SADC REEP has supported the project with a few learning support materials.
Seed funded projects
The SADC REEP has supported projects in a number of member States through seed-funding. Lesotho received funding to develop a Regional centre of expertise in early in 2010 while South Africa’s Gauteng Province also received seed-funding for establishing an RCE. Malawi and Zimbabwe received seed funding for establishment of communities of proactive at country-level focusing on capacity-building of CBOs working in various livelihood-improvement enterprises (bee-keeping, mushrooms, aquaculture, tree growing) and Reorienting EE/ESD Teacher Education respectively. Seed funding for Learning Support Materials was disbursed to Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Conclusion
The SADC REEP is developing a project proposal to seek funding for the next phase of the project beyond 2011, and input from environmental education practitioners is most welcome regarding content and possible partners. The SADC REEP would like to thank a number of partners who facilitated and co-funded decentralised activities in their Member States: the University of Swaziland (MESA Chair launch), Mulanje Mountain Conservation Trust (Learning Support Materials Skills Development workshop), Makana Regional Centre of Expertise [RCE], (hosting a SADC RCE coordination meeting), Institute of Environmental Studies – University of Zimbabwe (review of teaching of recently introduced EE course in Agriculture colleges), United Nations University RCE Service Centre (International RCE conference) and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency.
Click here to read the SADC REEP 2009 Annual Report