2018 WESSA Annual Review

The WESSA Eco-Schools Programme is the flagship education programme within the WESSA Schools and Youth Programme of WESSA and started in 2003. About 4500 schools have been part of the programme over the past 15 years. Eco-Schools help students to experience active citizenship in their school. It benefits the schools through an improved environment and financial savings, as well as increased environ- mental awareness. Most importantly it promotes student empowerment. Cur- rently more than 51 000 schools in 67 countries and 19,5 million learners are involved in the Eco-Schools Programme, making it the largest international net- work of teachers and pupils in the world (UN Final Report on the DESD, 2014, Nagoya). WESSA’s long-term goal is to enable young South Africans to achieve their full potential (environmental knowl- edge, skills, behaviour and values) to- wards a sustainable future by taking environmental action in their own areas and seeing the positive results that can be achieved. The WESSA Eco-Schools Programme is implemented in all 9 Provinces with as- sistance from WESSA programme staff, funders, partners and volunteers. Our national partners include Department of Basic Education (DBE), Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA), Depart- ment of Water and Sanitation (DWS), Water Research Commission (WRC) and Nampak who have been funding

the national WESSA Eco-schools Pro- gramme for the past 6 years. Being an international FEE programme we par- ticipate in international initiatives such as the annual NOM (National Operators Meeting) to network with other coun- tries and showcase our successes, the

African network as well as international twinning between schools (11 of South Africa’s Eco-Schools were twinned in 2017 with International schools from Czech Republic, Malta, Greece, India, Wales, Romania and Turkey). In 2017, 853 schools registered, 460 received awards translating into at least 1556 environmental projects implemented nationally. Schools achieving the De-

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