In April 2016, the Leadership Clubs in the Western Cape began preparing for their Days of Action which are set to take place in August. This year, the Leadership Clubs will be creating a campaign in the lead up to their Days of Action to stir some inspiration and rally others in their school communities to get involved.
The campaign is called #itscool2, where each Leadership Club has been tasked to come up with their own idea of what’s cool. They then have to link the idea to the concept of low-carbon, and creatively communicate it to their school.
Some of the standout hashtags so far are #itscool2roll, #itscool2beme and #itscool2dream. We’ll be posting more about the campaigns on our Facebook page in the coming weeks.
In other news, Daniel and Thando headed to KwaZulu-Natal to meet up with one of our working partners, the Women’s Leadership and Training Programme, and to visit some of the Leadership Clubs in and around Centocow, 200kms west of Durban.
Twenty minutes’ drive from Centocow lies Amakhuze High School. The school has the capacity to store over 30000 litres of water in rainwater tanks. But capacity aside, the KwaZulu-Natal province has been grappling with its worst drought since 1982. So what will happen if the water runs out? Although this isn’t a reality just yet at Amakhuze, it’s a problem that other schools are already facing. Most of the schools that Project 90 is working with are not connected to municipal water supplies, and rely upon more labour intensive ways to access water – including transporting water in buckets over long distances. With the on-going drought, the schools are faced with rapdily depleting water resources – as boreholes dry up and rain water tanks run dry.
In light of this challenge, for the remainder of this year, we will be working closely with our local Leadership Club mentors and the participating schools, to collaborate on water conservation projects at the schools. The Leadership Club members will learn about ways to make good use of their existing water reserves, so as to enable their schools to become more water secure.
Follow us on our Facebook page to see how our participating schools in KwaZulu-Natal are taking up the challenge.
Daniel Robinson
Youth Leadership Development Coordinator
