De Beers Impact Report - December 2020

Makgafela Primary School written by Mpya Aletta Mokgadi

Makgafela Primary School was established in 1991 with just 90 learners and 3 teachers, it started with one block of 3 classrooms. Presently we have 219 learners from grade R-7 with 2 classroom blocks and six teachers.

“

We started as an Eco-School in 2015 and found value in the workshops that were conducted by WESSA to help us start and plan our change projects. We particularly enjoy being a part of the programme because it gives alternative teaching methods for maths and science at our school. In our journey we have mastered teaching natural science outside and learned that the learners enjoy and learn from practical learning.

“

Vegetable production

The school produces vegetables throughout the year, the vegetables are then used to supplement the school’s kitchen and to provide people from the community with produce to ensure income generation for the school, we have raise over R3000 for our school over the years. Some of our biggest challenges were the fact that the school garden was full of stones (big and small) and the Eco-Schools committee came up with the following ways to deal with the issue; We dug seed beds and planting holes to get rid of stones and pebbles, bought soil from contractors and fed the soil with organic manure to maintain fertility. From this particular project learners now know how to grow vegetables even at and the teachers acquired gardening skills. the community members are more aware of what is happening in the school and more involved. parents don’t have to walk too far to by vegetable as they are readily available at the school. In the next year we are looking to purchase a 100m net structure that will protect seedlings from weather, insects and introduce the school garden to the drip method of irrigation.

De Beers Blouberg 2020 23