Education & Awareness
To ensure our project is making a sustainable impact, it is vital to engage the community and the next generation. An important part of our project is our knowledge sharing and educational programmes in both schools and communities.
Environmental Kindness Clubs
We introduced environmental education to our projects in 2000. This was done through setting up environmental kindness clubs in local schools. We have now involved 14 schools, from 3 different islands in the archipelago; Lamu, Manda & Pate. Each school has 20 kids and over the years we have had over 260 students go through our environmental kindness clubs. The teacher in each school holds weekly classes for their club and our educational team visits at least 3 schools a week.
Some of our clubs even have their own nursery where they grow plant and vegetables. We also have our waste management collection bins our schools.
Excursions & Exchanges
Learning in a class room is the first step, being immersed in the environment is then next and as equally important. Immersing yourself in nature can be incredibly impactful to gaining a boarder understanding and instilling the desire to protect. We arrange excursions into the field for kids involved in our Environmental Kindness Clubs, they visit turtle nesting sites, mangrove restoration projects, marine conservation areas, historical and cultural sites, undertake beach clean ups and many more.
As the teachers from our club schools help us manage these clubs and hold weekly classes, capacity building and trainings are important for them too. We help facilitate these along with exchanges, such as last years exchange to Lewa Wildlife Conservancy for digital learning training.
PACE Program
PACE (Pan African Conservation Education) is a program set up by our long standing funders, Tusk Trust. We have introduced their educational materials to our environmental kindness clubs, which address modules on Living with wildlife, Water, Soil, Trees, Energy, Urban living, Living by the ocean, Health and Careers in Conservation.
We have also featured in films used in the program addressing waste management and mangrove conservation.
Digital Literacy
We have introduced the Digital Literacy program to our environmental kindness clubs. By kitting out schools with digital equipment, digitising curriculum material and training teachers on how to use these they have hugely increased the quality of education, and learning outcomes. the system used is Kolibri, a Learning Equality’s free and open source platform bringing digital educational resources to areas with limited Internet connectivity and our implementation to the course it thanks to the PACE program.
Bahari Yetu Festival
In 2022 we held the first Bahari Yetu Festival, now an annual event in Lamu. The aim is to spread awareness about ocean conservation in the Lamu Archipelago. This is done through sharing knowledge, fun educational activities and by providing sonships for schools from our clubs to attend aw well as a platform for local conservation and community run organisations to showcase the work they are doing. It is a free event run off partnerships, donations and sponsorship.
Last year we had the attendance of over 360 kids and showcased 10 conservation and community organisation stalls. There were fun activities such as magari ya miti (recycled model car races), Zidau za Mwau (Model dhow races), Swimming races and Sand sculpture competitions. Followed by fun educational and engaging performance about conserving the environment. As well as talent shows by the kids.
If you want to find out more visit the Bahari Yetu Festival page.
Screenings & Workshops
In our partnership with East African Ocean Explorers and Africa Underwater we hold screenings and workshops. These are not based on not only our environmental kindness clubs but in communities and schools across the archipelago from Lamu to Kiwayuu, Through these screening we show Swahili films, most which have been film in Lamu or along the Kenyan coast, showcase the beauty and fragility of the ocean. It was one of these films that got community buy in for the Kinyika JCMA.
Through our workshops we have share educational packs around the films as well as sharing inspiring pages from colouring books that share the beauty of terrestrial wildlife and the underwater world in both English and Swahili. Which are now being translated to other African languages.
Elasmobranch Education
We are partners of the Elasmobranch Education Program along the Kenyan coast. This program aims to raise awareness about elasmobranchs (sharks, rays, and skates) and their conservation to inspire protection and foster sustainable practices among local communities. This program is being run in collaboration with multiple organisations along the coast and has been set up by the Conservation Education Society