The Great Primate Handshake – Volunteer in Africa, working to conserve monkeys and apes through film and educational content production

Today the education team, Suzanne, Abbie, Jade and Ellie, went to Kasiisi School to teach a conservation lesson as part of the schools wildlife club.

We were joined by Ben and Natasha from the video team, so they could make a documentary of our day. Rehmat, Alex and Kiera from the web team came to take photos and help out. It wasn’t the quickest start to the day as it was my birthday party last night, so everyone is a little tired. We all soon forgot this when we arrived at the school, the children have so much energy.

The wildlife club is optional and over 60 children attend; it’s fantastic that so many children are interested in conservation. The first activity that the club does is a litter pick. They carry a banner with the school logo and sing songs on the way down to the village. We managed to collect 3 large baskets full of rubbish. The children talk to the local villagers trying to encourage them to recycle; the villagers appreciate the children getting involved but find it difficult to recycle everything used. Everything that was collected is taken back to the school; the paper is used for making rope, baskets and jewellery.

Once we got back to the school we split into groups, one group made ropes and footballs out of the materials collected, the second group did a tip-tap lesson and the other children were in a choir lesson. We watched the choir group and attempted to join in; this is the song that they were singing:

Uganda sees the environment is gone,
Trees cut down,
What shall we do?
The only solution is to plants more trees,
Plant more trees,
And let the environment shine.

Then it was the education teams turn to teach the lesson that we have been preparing. All the children sat in a circle while I read them a story about Colin the Colobus which we wrote as a team. We all sat amongst the children and discussed the issues covered in the story.

It was then time for a warm-up; we played a modified version of ‘stuck in the mud’ that we devised with humans chasing the monkeys!! This introduced the issue of deforestation to the children in a fun and interactive way which the children really enjoyed. They were all far too fast for us to catch them!

We then moved on to our main activity. I split the children into 4 groups; each member of the team was in charge of a different group. Jade took the machines group, the children had to act like a machine going into the forest to crop down the trees, and one of the children was at the front being a human driving the machine.

 
Abbie’s group were monkeys, swinging through the trees, eating food and making lots of monkey noises. Suzanne was in charge of the trees, teaching the children how to grow from a seed into a tall tree.

Eleanor took the conservationists group, getting them to march into the forest and educate people too conserve the forest. The idea of this activity was to get the children thinking about how their character would be feeling. They practiced their movements before we all joined together again.

I then read out a little story so the children could act out their movements along to the story. The trees started as seeds and then grew tall so the monkeys could swing through them. The humans then drove the machines into the forest and cut down the trees. The trees fell to the floor and the monkeys left the forest very sad. The conservationists then entered the forest to educate the humans about why they should conserve their forest.
A spokesperson from the conservation group explained why the forest is worth saving; it was fantastic to hear the children talk about conservation so passionately. More ‘seeds’ were then planted so the forest could grow tall again; the monkeys could then swing through the trees.

Our story had a happy ending, but the lesson showed that this is not always the case. With a positive attitude a difference can be made and a brighter future can be achieved.

The session concluded with a discussion on how the children felt during the story to reinforce the issues covered.

One of the girls, Beatrice stood in the middle of the circle once we had finished and thanked us. She said she had learnt a lot and was looking forward to teaching her friends. We were all really overwhelmed and touched by what she said, as we felt we had made a real difference.

After the lesson Tom who leads the wildlife club gave me some really positive feedback, he was really pleased with everything the children had learnt and would love us to go back to the school to teach again.

All the planning and preparation was worth it. It was a fantastic experience to teach a wildlife lesson in a Ugandan School.

Good job education team!!!!

Ellie Sowerby
Eduation Team, Handshake Volunteer Uganda 2010