Schools reliable agents for social change, community development

In pursuance of its noble goals of community education, Bubi Rural District Council is lauded for closely working with schools through its departments of social services and the Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (Campfire) manned by executive officers, Mr Vuyo Nhongo and Mr Sydney Muyambi respectively with the latter being the cog behind the Awareness Through Sports, programme in the district.
The Awareness Through Sports programme comes to schools as part of council’s multi-faceted strategies of reducing brazen and wanton poaching of trees, sand and minerals in the district. It also seeks to create awareness against poaching of specified animals which is also discouraged by numerous regional and international conventions on endangered species to which Zimbabwe is a signatory.
The marriage between the council and schools is clear testimony that schools are not only centres of learning but also reliable agents for social change and community development through sports.
It is, I presume, out of this realisation that the council has rightly struck this marriage with schools in the district in order to utilise schools’ sports as an opportunity and vehicle of propagating council education on the ideals of preserving natural resources facing possible extinction due to wanton poaching by communities.
Mr Muyambi said:
“Sport is a crowd puller. Adults and children come from every corner of the district to watch sport. We seize such opportunities to unveil our activities through supporting nearly all sporting activities in the district.”
Since its inception in 2009, he added, the Campfire department has been scoring positive results despite some challenges.
Each year, the seven Bubi district sports clusters namely Inyathi North, Inyathi South, Inkosikazi Central, Inkosikazi East, Inkosikazi South, Tara and Lukona converge on Tatazela council grounds to compete in soccer, netball or athletics. Every year, there are numerous individual or collective prizes that council puts at stake as a token of appreciation for sporting excellence and a way of raising awareness among communities through support of sports in schools.
Also available are taxidermised animal artifacts, trophies made of eland or buffalo horns, engraved wood trophies,                        T-shirts, kits, balls, caps and pamphlets all emblazoned with graphics that seek to raise awareness in communities on the need to spare natural resources.
Special regalia for officials is commonly prepared for such events and numerous themes and visions on the importance of natural resources preservation carry the day at schools competitions.
Many parents across the wards have also hailed the council for its Awareness Through Sports programmes as educative and informative.
“School children must be informed and educated on the importance of the preservation of natural resources because they are children today but may be poachers tomorrow,” said Mr Mthulisi Ncube, a parent in Ward 15.  He is also a ward-based resources monitor.
He said he made sure that he attended the council-sponsored annual sports events at Tatazela council grounds since it was one of the key ways of reducing poaching through sports.
Another parent, Mr Mandla Ndlovu of Ward 14 in Nsango also hailed council for its programme.  He said many communities had become aware of Campfire through the council’s support of sports in schools.
“The council is doing a good job. The education passed to us during children’s sports sponsored by council is vital. Many people are now changing their attitudes towards poaching,” said Mr Ndlovu.
He added that, following the introduction of the community education through sport programme, the number of people arrested for poaching had decreased around many communities.
Schools, the major council partner in the success of Awareness Through Sports have praised the council programmes particularly those aimed at arresting wanton poaching depleting trees, animals and sand.
Schools are chief custodians and implementers of any environment-based curriculum which discourages depletion of ozone layer, killing of animals, upsetting of the natural ecosystem and the poaching of trees and sand which are the chief causes of soil erosion. Soil erosion results in vast useless, deformed and inhabitable acres of land.
Commenting on schools’ rapport with the council, a school head and member of the National Association of Primary Heads who preferred anonymity described the councils’ Awareness Through Sports programme as a multi-shaping approach to children. “We applaud council for availing this golden opportunity to school children. They do not only learn how to jump and run but also learn how to be responsible citizens who can fit into their communities without quarrelling with their environments,” she said.
She explained that parents who attended these events got the opportunity to listen to various messages on environmental resources preservation and how parents could convert their poaching energies into tools of environmental management for life-long sustainability of animals, trees, minerals, sand and fish.