WESSA Annual Review 2022

T WESSA SCHOOLS PROGRAMME The WESSA school programmes take a life-long learning approach from pre-primary to career, ensuring our youth are equipped with the critical competencies to actively participate and engage towards an environmentally sustainable economy and society for all. The WESSA School Programmes reached 22 000 learners, and 1200 teachers in over 600 schools bringing inclusive quality environmental education experiences to schools. The WESSA Eco-Schools programme, in its 19th year, continues to drive sustainable action and offer holistic environmental education solutions to South African schools.

Our learner-led initiatives are shaping young people to realise the power of their actions in the journey towards a healthy planet for all.

As part of WESSA’s recognition of the power of education, we have introduced a three-tiered support model approach that ensures no one is left behind in the transformative learning journey that starts at school. This three-tiered approach will include school leadership teams, teachers and learners to ensure a whole school approach to education for sustainable development. The three-tiered approach calls for the entire school to advocate and be actively engaged in working towards a sustainable school with education for sustainable development as the driving factor. School leaders have a direct influence on the quality of teaching, education, and ultimately learner performance.

WESSA was one of the implementing partners in the Keep it Cool Climate Change Education where the three-tiered approach was successfully used to support schools towards becoming climate resilient. VVOB and GreenMatter in partnership with Fundisa for Change, WESSA and CASME are the implementing partners of Keep it Cool Climate Change Education (KIC: CCE) involving 100 schools and 200 teachers. WESSA supported 120 teachers through coaching and mentoring sessions to start a curriculum-activated change project at their school that addresses a locally

relevant climate change issue. The project received the Silver Award at the 2022 Eco-Logic awards in the category of Climate Change.

Leadership teams

The City of Cape Town partnered with WESSA Young Reporters for the Environment (YRE) programme to launch the first phase of this unique and pioneering programme in Cape Town. The partnership is strongly aligned towards fostering capabilities and competencies in youth advocacy in six high schools, to contribute to the resilience of their communities and propose innovative solutions by harnessing social media and its global network to tell their own solution-driven, knowledge-rich and contextual stories.

A whole school approach to education for sustainable development

Learners

Teachers

learner-led initiatives