Wild Coast pupils want a cleaner environment
Pupils from Ithuba Wild Coast Community College joined a three kilometre clean-up walk to help drive home a recycling message in the broader community.
It’s like it’s invisible and there’s a fight raging to get young people to see it.
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We are talking about litter and the battle being fought at a progressive South Coast school catering for many Eastern Cape pupils.
This week pupils from Ithuba Wild Coast Community College joined a three kilometre clean-up walk to help drive home a recycling message in the broader community.
The primary school overlooks the Mzamba River, not far from sandstone and limestone deposits containing fossils dating back 80 million years.
It’s an area of great natural beauty. The school’s managing director, Jackie du Toit, would like to keep it that way by encouraging pupils to take responsibility.
Ms Du Toit introduced the clean-up walks in 2011. The school has been running them regularly ever since.
“We fight every day to teach kids to pick up litter at school as they do not seem to even see it. I hope it is sinking in,” she says.
Helping collect litter, Grade 7 prefect, Gysel Smith, said young people in all schools should work together for a more eco-friendly environment.
“When we all use bins for our litter it can be recycled to make more products in the future.”
Mzamba resident Mtinalabi Mofokeng was impressed.
“It is lovely to see such amazing work done by a school. When I was at school our teachers didn’t have the time to educate us about caring for our environment.”
The school was founded in 2011 with funding from Austria. It now has 306 pupils from grade R to 7.
In 2014, the school joined the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa’s Eco-Schools programme, an international initiative developed to support environmental learning in the classroom.
Pupils are encouraged to take care and be conscious of environmental issues, with the programme linked to the school’s curriculum.
• Mlu Mdletshe is a Durban University of Technology journalism graduate enrolled on Roving Reporters environmental journalism training project, Developing Environmental Watchdogs.
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