Community projects

The College has been involved in several projects in our local rural community over the years. It has always been the focus of our projects to contribute to improved environmental education within the community schools as well as provide support where possible.

The community that we have been directly involved with is situated within the Mnisi tribal area. Over the past few years we have focused on two main projects:


Eco –schools
This is a nation wide initiative through the Wildlife Society of South Africa and involves assisting schools to integrate environmental issues into their curriculum more effectively. The schools register with the project at the start of the year and throughout the year they conduct a series of environmental activities and lessons around chosen environmental themes for the year. This encourages schools to examine their own environmental issues of concern and raise awareness of these amongst the learners. If these are completed successfully the school is awarded am Eco Schools Green Flag at the end of the year.

We have been involved with two Primary Schools (Muchuchi Primary and Welverdiend Primary) over the past three years and they have both been awarded a Green Flag for their efforts. In 2011, we have added four new Primary Schools to the Eco-Schools list including Xalati, Mtembene, Manyaleti and Matikinya Primaries. We have scheduled a workshop for late March for all six of our Eco-Schools. The function will be presented by Mpumalanga Eco-Schools Coordinator, Suzette de Beer, who will bring forward new approaches and implementation plans to the Eco-Schools program.

This year we would like to increase our emphasis on capacity building the teaching staff of the schools in terms of their knowledge of environmental issues and projects that they would be able to implement in their schools. We operate on "Green Works" Environmental Calendar where we implement appropriate themes each month including water week, rhino day, arbor day, etc.

The SAWC Environmental Education students spend time with Muchuchi and surrounding schools giving environmental speeches and presentations to the youth. The SAWC students provide stellar role models for the children in schools and support them in their childhood development.

As part of the College's commitment to raising environmental awareness, we bring the community scholars to our training grounds for lectures and game drives on a frequent basis. We believe that in order to curb pollution, poaching and the explosive population growth, environmental education is the absolute key to success.

In early 2011, we successfully accredited 12 Muchuchi Primary teachers with "tennis coaching" qualifications. The program is well on its way do developing rising junior players although funding for this program is our greatest barrier.

The New Life day care centre
We have been involved with assisting this crèche in Welverdiend village by improving their facility where our funds allow. This project is totally dependant on donations we have received, but through these donations we have been able to assist the crèche by building a jungle gym, painting the classrooms, constructing a new roof, buying toys and learning materials and developing a vegetable garden.

The crèche started as a bare room with no toys, and we are so pleased to see the growth into a thriving environment for the children.

The College would like to continue it’s role as a provider of education in the area as this is our strength and the need for improved environmental awareness is very great. In 2010 we will be implementing some new training courses and workshops aimed at assisting teachers further with environmental education in the schools and establishing new environmental projects within the community.