AGAINST ALL ODDS ( West End Primary, an Eco-School In Mitchell’s Plain, trying to make a difference!) 1

Overview and context West End is situated in Lentegeur, an area that is plagued with gangsters, drug abuse and teenage pregnancies. This stem from overcrowding homes. Poverty is rife, with many parents being unemployed. More and more cases of TB and HIV are detected. We have sandy soil, an environmental issue that we need to tackle to grow and harvest good veggies to contribute to feeding the needy families in our community. 2

Eco-School Kirstenbosch Fynbos Node 3

Outreach Greening Programme 4 Aims of the programme: To establish indigenous, water-wise school and community gardens. To promote the educational value of indigenous plants and gardens. To use the gardens as an educational tool to incorporate Environmental Education into the curriculum. To develop gardening skills to enable economic empowerment and local environmental action.

Outreach Greening Programme 5 Year One Horticultural training workshops, development of indigenous starter garden. Identify a space to start the garden.

Indigenous garden development 6 Year two Garden interpretation labelling, creating story boards and extension of the garden.

Empowerment 7 Year three: Teachers training to encourage garden use for education purposes.

Transforming school grounds 8

Curriculum Biodiversity lessons in garden and classroom 9

10 Teaching and learning in the school indigenous garden

11 Transfer of biodiversity knowledge and skills

Shadow programme Transfer of skills

Teacher involvement 13

Successes and Challenges 14

15 Projects

Lessons learned and way forward 16 Sustainability Community involvement. Principal support. Partner support. Content knowledge of teachers and learners. Developing capacity of teachers {champion teachers}. Teachers using garden for teaching and learning. The structured framework of the Eco-School Programme. Achieve International Flag status.

Thank You 17