Over the weekend we played host to students from Shimoni Primary School. Friends of Shimoni Forest, who we are supporting in their efforts to seek responsible management of the forest by the community, feel that one of the most effective ways to get their message in to the wider community is by sending home groups of excited children to tell their families what they have learnt. So with the challenge put to us, that is what we set out to do on Saturday…

The children begun their day with the theme of ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ before going on to make recyled baskets from paper mache - an activity they found very funny, but once they had dried by the end of the morning and been planted with vegetable seeds, they had the beginnings of their own school vegetable garden. We have started introducing the concept of these little hanging gardens in Mkwiro village, where the goats manage to get to absolutely everything within reach, no matter how clever we think we are getting with fences!

The children then settled down to an outside class on the Angolan Black & White Colobus and other primates found in Shimoni before being taken in to the forest to to learn more about it hands-on, including behaviour as they watched a troop of Colobus, and flicking through our books to identify the birds.

This is the third such class we have run for Shimoni Primary School and plan to get as many of the children in to the forest as we can to ensure they don’t take for granted their incredible natural heritage.

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