Education in Cipaganti

This week our school session carried on the littering theme introduced to the children the previous week and was kick started with a litter pick around the school grounds. The children were asked to collect what rubbish they could find and it soon turned into an excited stampede of racing bodies as they all rushed to collect the most! After fifteen minutes of picking we then washed and dried the rubbish ready for a group discussion about what ‘treasure’ had been found. Wanting to give the children the opportunity to be creative in their thinking we asked them to imagine what their rubbish could be used for. After many minutes each group came up with their answers and some fantastic suggestions from lamp shades to stick houses were given.
The children were then shown slides of what people all over the world have used rubbish to make and each of them was blown away with what people had achieved from what is considered waste! Every child had their eyes glued to the screen and a lot of ‘Wow’s!’ escaped their lips.
After this injection of visual creativity we provided the children with plastic paint pot containers salvaged from a rubbish heap. Volunteer Charlotte pre painted them white ready for the session so that they could be decorated by the children and used as bins around the school.
Always eager to draw the children made group masterpieces out of the containers and at the end of the session each group personally installed their bin in a part of the school. It was wonderful to see that the bins were put to use straight away and the class seemed extremely proud of their days work!

Nature Club

This week in nature club the children watched our ‘’Don’t Let Me Vanish’’ video. When it was finished, Pak Dendi instigated a recap on its contents to ascertain the children’s understanding and views on what they had just seen. Interestingly, when he reached a scene containing a dancing monkey he asked, ‘’Where does the monkey live and where does he come from?’’. To our surprise the children all answered, ‘’In the street!’’. Shocked Pak Dendi asked them again to reaffirm their answer but the same reply was given. This was incredibly interesting to learn that the children think these monkey’s live on the street and this is their normal environment. It goes to show that for many of them this is the only place they have known them to be. When the children were then told that in fact the monkeys also live in the forest like lorises, many seemed genuinely surprised!

Continuing the session, with thanks to Msc student Brenda de Groot the children then coloured in her beautiful civet dot to dot and colouring page creations. It is very important that we not only teach the children about the lorises but also about other species, and like in the instance of the dancing monkeys, most of the children have no clue about these animals, and if they only see them caged and kept as pets, then this is how they will perceive them. The children enjoyed this activity so much and for the first time did not rush to finish but took their time and hardly a squeak was heard from any of them! When the session came to an end, all the children left with big smiles on their faces and requesting more dot to dot and colouring pages for next weeks session!