As schools around Fiji look forward to the Christmas holidays, the end of term 3 also marks the closing of an epic chapter for the newly established Mamanuca Eco Club.
The Mamanuca Eco Club was established in the three island schools of Malolo District School, Namamanuca Primary School and Mana SDA School in September of this year. The Mamanuca Eco Club focuses on a holistic approach towards environmental education and conservation in primary school level.
Birthed with the concept of Ridge to reef Conservation, the Eco Clubs at its pilot phase will seek to guide the Eco Club members through hands on activities, management tools, and conservation efforts to address pressing issues on the island such as overfishing, waste management, water shortage, loss of endangered species, forest degradation and rising sea levels as well as the top three threats to coral reefs, which includes; global climate change, land based sources of pollution and negative impacts from fishing.
With an approach as such, the Eco Club activities incorporates three focal areas; Marine, Land and Culture which ensures the holistic approach intended to addressing issues at island school communities in the Mamanucas.
Within the short span of two months MES held consultations with the village communities and school teachers on plans to implement an Eco Club at the three island schools. The consultation outcomes rallied positive and utmost support from the teachers towards this new program.
The Eco Club members at the three school sites kicked off their Eco Club activities with a plastic bottle drive. Plastic bottles on the island if not re used to store drinking water, oil and fuel, are highly likely to end up on the beach and in the ocean. The bottle drive in the schools encouraged every student to drop any used plastic bottle into the 3R bags. The bottles were then utilized to create various art to beautify the schools from simple moral values tree to bottle chains for walkways.
The Eco Club also took on another challenge on conducting waste audit in their school. All three schools with the support of the teachers took part in the waste audit by allocating a day to collect all waste generated in the classroom throughout the day. Each classroom were distributed a garbage bag each. On the following day, the Eco Club members, were divided into groups and carried out the waste audit. Each garbage bag form each classroom was weighed and each type of rubbish counted and number recorded. Across the three schools I t was found that the most common rubbish generated from each classroom was white paper.
As this chapter closes, our sincere thanks to all who have supported the MES team and the three schools. To our member resorts for provision of boat transfers to and from school sites, teachers for allocating time to conduct our program and the communities for their continuous support. MES together with the three schools eagerly anticipates another new chapter of the Mamanuca Eco Club in 2016
