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19th June 2016/by dev01
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https://changinglivesthroughnature.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/logo-small.png 0 0 dev01 https://changinglivesthroughnature.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/logo-small.png dev012016-06-19 23:41:082016-06-19 23:41:08

EXCITING, ENRICHING and LIFE CHANGING CAMPS

 
Changing Lives Through Nature
Last week the learners from the Conservation Leade Last week the learners from the Conservation Leadership Programme had their end of year Ultimate Braai Master event! It was a great event to get together, enjoy the fresh air, and chat about the year that’s passed. We chatted to the groups to get their take on 2020: how they felt about the year under Covid-19 rules, and what they expected for next year. The big takeaway was that they really missed each other! I think we can all relate! Covid-19 has had a big effect on them because they are social and want to see more of each other. They would especially like the learners from the programme to find a Covid-19 vaccine! One learner, Bilqees, had this to say, “The year 2020 was super disappointing because I expected an absolutely productive year. We barely got a chance to see the new learners and we didn’t do many camps. My highlight was definitely the nurdles clean-up. We chatted about school and new projects we would like to do in the future. I got a chance to form a new study group with some of my friends from the programme and we improved our marks at school. I really didn’t have any lowlights, overall the year was great.” Thank you Justine for coordinating this programme during a difficult year and still making the most of it! Thank you to Soetwater Resort for hosting us – it was a really great end to the year.
Today is International Human Rights’ Day – whe Today is International Human Rights’ Day – where we acknowledge and celebrate the anniversary of the day, in 1948, when the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This document is available in 500 languages and is the most translated document in the world. It proclaims that regardless of race, colour, religion, sex, language, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status, we are all entitled to certain inalienable rights. As a country that has a rich history of systematic inequality and human rights violations, we celebrate the signing of this document and hope that together we can achieve a status where these inalienable rights are awarded to all. As the late, great Nelson Mandela once said, “Poverty is not an accident. Like slavery and apartheid, it is man-made and can be removed by the actions of human beings.” We urge you all, as this year comes to an end, to think of the marginalized citizens who have been thrown into poverty due to this pandemic. The theme for this year’s Human Rights Day is: Recover Better – Stand up for Human Rights. There were many failures exposed and exploited by the Covid-19 pandemic and we need to ensure that we apply Human Rights standards in our recovery efforts and to tackle entrenched, systematic, and intergenerational inequalities, exclusion and discrimination. 10 December is an opportunity to reaffirm the importance of human rights in re-building the world we want. Please stay home this festive season, and help to save lives so we can all move forward together into a better, and brighter future.
#WhoAreWeWednesdays – Justine Swartz, Conservati #WhoAreWeWednesdays – Justine Swartz, Conservation Leadership Programme coordinator. We select learners in grade 6 to be part of this programme where in the last 7 years of their school careers we mentor them to become environmental champions. CTEET’s vision is to create a generation of nature-conscious youth, facilitating their entry into the green economy through our Créche-to-Career model. Justine has been with CTEET since 2005. She was doing dragon boat training at what was then known as ZEEP (Zeekoevlei Environmental Education Programme) and saw learners on a CTEET camp which sparked her interest! She volunteered on the education day programmes and soon became permanent staff. She says, “I love my job as I can do what I love and that is being in nature and working with people. I believe in this programme as it connects learners to nature and makes them see there is more to experience in our natural environment than just sitting on your phone or social media, but also to be active and steer away from the negatives in our communities like gangsterism or drugs.” The programme started in 2013 and had its first group of graduates in 2019. Some of them now work for CTEET on an ad-hoc basis while they’re studying. We are so proud of their growth. Thank you Justine for all your hard work. Here are some messages from the learners: “You have been a great mentor to me, and [all of us]. You have shaped us to be the leaders we are today, no matter the problem we faced you were there and will forever be by our side, being our support and guidance to lead us on the correct path. If it weren’t for you, Justine, I would never have realised my life ambition which is to become a conservationist. For that I thank you very much with all my heart.” – Mario. “Our mentor for 6 years now has been Justine. She is kind, generous and understanding. She always points us in the right direction and has given us ample opportunity to learn and grow. She is like a second mother or a favourite aunty. She is fun, outgoing, and challenges herself to the max. She is super special and she has watched us grow as we have watched her grow. We love and value her.” – Bilqees
#WhoAreWeWednesdays: Introducing Louise Baldwin, S #WhoAreWeWednesdays: Introducing Louise Baldwin, Species Conservation Manager. Louise is responsible for facilitating the management of conservation projects and protection of endangered species in Cape Town. She has worked in the conservation field throughout her career and when she moved to Cape Town 4 years ago from the UK she found CTEET! Louise jumped at the chance to get involved just as CTEET was initiating a conservation project working on two Critically Endangered butterfly species endemic to the Cape Flats, the Barber’s Cape Flats Ranger (Kedestes barberae bunta) and the False Bay Unique Ranger (Kedestes lenis lenis). These butterflies are on the brink of extinction and can be found in patches of Sword grass (Imperata cylindrica), the only plant that their caterpillars are able to eat. Once hatched, the caterpillars crawl to the top of a blade of grass where they create a little home, folding and stitching the grass leaf together with silk, quite unusual behaviour! They use their home to shelter from the heat of the day as well as from predators that might be hunting nearby. Unfortunately, the butterflies’ habitat is under grave threat, thus the Kedestes Conservation Project was born! In partnership with the City of Cape Town, Louise and the team are working hard to save these two butterfly species. When she is not saving the butterflies, Louise loves to be outside in nature, hiking in the mountains having moved to South Africa specifically for the outdoor lifestyle. In her own words, “It is a real privilege to live in Cape Town, a place full of such biodiversity, and to be able to manage hands on, practical conservation projects that are trying to conserve some of the highly threatened species we have here.” Thank you for all your hard work Louise! #conservation #changinglivesthroughnature #savethebutterflies
1 December is Giving Tuesday and we are calling on 1 December is Giving Tuesday and we are calling on all followers to assist us! We would love to continue delivering the highest quality environmental education for many years to come, but we need your help. Our Créche-to-Career model provides various touch points through which we seek to engage with school children and out of school youth, in order to develop responsible citizens and champions for nature. CTEET has been working tirelessly for nearly 20 years to deliver exciting and life-changing environmental education, day programs, overnight camps, NQF level training and development, plus offering valuable workplace experience in the environmental sector. This would not be possible without the generous support of our donors and loyal followers. The Covid-19 virus has been an unprecedented time, putting strain on our organisation, especially our funds. We are excited to continue providing the quality experiences you have come to know and love from CTEET! Our team has been hard at work in the background over the past year and we can’t wait to share with you what we’ve been working on! Please show some love and support by making a donation this Tuesday. Please follow the link in our bio to support us or simply scan the Snapscan barcode in this post! #GivingTuesday #GivingTuesday2020 #ChangingLivesThroughNature
The CTEET Nurdle Champions have been at it for wee The CTEET Nurdle Champions have been at it for weeks! The learners from our Conservation Leadership Programme have been heading to the beach almost every weekend to collect nurdles – they collected an estimated 25000 nurdles in one session! There are still masses of nurdles lining our beaches, please keep doing your best to collect them whenever you go to the beach. 1. What you need: a bucket, a sieve, and a ziplock bag or container. 2. Where to look: start looking along the highwater mark. The nurdles will be pushed up by the waves onto the sand and will sometimes sit just under the surface. 3. How to collect them: Fill your bucket with water and scoop some nurdle-filled sand into the bucket. The nurdles will float to the surface and you can scoop them out with your sieve and put them into your collecting container. 4. Who do you give them to: You can drop your nurdles off at @sharkspotters in Fishhoek and Muizenberg, @2oceansaquarium at the Waterfront, and @komsurf_ . Please make sure you’ve written the date and location of your collection on the container. All the nurdles will be weighed and recorded to quantify the extent of the spill. These will then be used to create building materials in a revolutionary new material which uses mixed plastic waste to create a concrete modifier as effective as construction sand. Find out more about Resin8 at https://crdc.global/ @thebeachco_op @pristineearthcollective #nurdles #plasticwaste
#WhoAreWeWednesdays introducing Ntombikayise Lolwa #WhoAreWeWednesdays introducing Ntombikayise Lolwane, Site Manager based at Table Bay Nature Reserve: Milnerton Racecourse Section. This reserve comprises Cape Flats Sand Fynbos vegetation, and is one of the City of Cape Town’s core biodiversity sites. Home to 232 recorded plant species, 94 bird species, 14 mammal species, 14 insect species, 8 reptile species, and 4 amphibians, Ntombi is responsible for managing and maintaining the biodiversity value and structure within this reserve. The reserve consists of two seasonal wetlands, which provide habitat for a variety of fauna and flora including a number of bird species, some of which use the area for breeding. It also hosts its very own “little five” which highlight some of the critters that can be found at the reserve. These are the Dwarf Chameleon (Bradypodion pumilum), Water Mongoose (Atilax paludinosus), Cape Grysbok (Raphicerus melanotis), Black-Headed Heron (Ardea melanocephala) and the Angulate Tortoise (Chersina angulata). Growing up with a strong passion for nature, animals, and conserving it all, Ntombi started her journey with CTEET as an intern in 2017. She is in her element when outdoors and surrounded by nature, either hiking or swimming. She loves to cook and claims to be the best! (This has yet to be confirmed – perhaps a CTEET cook-off is on the cards!) In her own words, “My first experience with [CTEET] was one of growth, knowledge enrichment and self-fulfilment. CTEET is an organisation that not only touches you professionally but also taps into your personal life. Not one day have I woken up and felt like I am going to work, instead, I am more and more excited every day to be out in the field, doing what I love, sharing that love with others and watching them grow into this shared passion. Nature has a wealth of knowledge in it; you just need to know where to look. I still have a lifetime of learning and passing that knowledge to others, and I look forward to it.” Thank you for all your hard work, Ntombi, we love having you on the team! Find out more about the Nature Care Fund and our site managers on our website (link in bio).
Everyone has heard of the plastic crisis, the isla Everyone has heard of the plastic crisis, the island of plastic in the middle of the ocean, single use plastics filling the bellies of sea creatures, microplastics so small it seems impossible to ever remove them from the environment. All of this information can be overwhelming – especially the feeling that it is too late and nothing can be done to fix it. This is a myth, we can all do a small part to help the larger cause. If you are at the beach, feeling overwhelmed by the waste or you do not have a lot of time to pick up litter, just start small. Use the take 5 principle – pick up 5 items of waste whenever you go to the beach. Instead of throwing these items away, look at what you have found. What were these items used for before they become waste? Can we avoid producing these items altogether? What can we purchase instead of these items? Which of these items can still be used if they are collected and cleaned? Take a look at all those plastic lighters – perhaps the answer is to use zippo style lighters that are refillable and not made from plastic. What about the children’s toys? Could someone reuse them? Should we be purchasing sustainably sourced, locally crafted, wooden toys instead? See the plastic pens. Can we rather purchase refillable pens? Even though some of these items are not necessarily single use plastic items, they can still be damaging to the environment.
Most water and sanitation services around the worl Most water and sanitation services around the world are water and energy-intensive. The processes involved in collecting, treating and delivering water, and capturing, transporting and treating human waste result in greenhouse gas emissions. Increasing the efficiency of these systems, and reducing unnecessary water consumption and water loss, mean lower energy use and therefore lower emissions. Biogas from human waste can also be captured and used for greener energy generation. Globally, 80% of the wastewater generated by society flows back into the ecosystem without being treated or reused. Sustainable sanitation systems capture, transport, treat, dispose of, and safely reuse human waste. In addition to the profound impact on health and living conditions, safely-managed wastewater has massive potential as an affordable and sustainable source of energy, nutrients, and water that can mitigate climate risk in the agriculture and energy sectors. For more info visit: www.worldtoiletday.org #WorldToiletDay #climatechange
Today is World Toilet Day, 19 November 2020: World Today is World Toilet Day, 19 November 2020: World Toilet Day celebrates toilets and raises awareness of the 4.2 billion people living without access to safely managed sanitation. It is about taking action to tackle the global sanitation crisis and achieve Sustainable Development Goal 6: water and sanitation for all by 2030. The effects of climate change threaten water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) infrastructure, such as when floodwater contaminates wells used for drinking water or when flooding damages toilets and spreads human waste into communities and food crops. These incidents, which are becoming more frequent as climate change worsens, spread human waste into people’s living environments and cause deadly and chronic diseases. Sustainable sanitation means a system of reliable, effective faecal capture, disposal, treatment and safe reuse, which is resilient to external shocks such as flooding, water shortages and sea level rise. Improving the way we manage human waste is key to reducing the impact of poorly-treated wastewater. Sustainable Development Goal 6 requires us by 2030 to “improve water quality by reducing pollution, eliminating dumping and minimizing release of hazardous chemicals and materials, halving the proportion of untreated wastewater and substantially increasing recycling and safe reuse globally.” The achievement of this target is essential for healthy water environments and creating sustainable livelihoods. For more info visit: www.worldtoiletday.org #WorldToiletDay #climatechange #environment
#WhoWeAreWednesdays Today we are introducing Fayru #WhoWeAreWednesdays Today we are introducing Fayruz Prins, Assistant Conservation Officer at Kenilworth Racecourse Conservation Area. Did you know that the Kenilworth Racecourse has one of the last patches of indigenous Cape Flats Sand Fynbos? This patch of land is home to over 400 plant species, many of which are listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, 11 amphibian species including one of the last three populations of micro frog (the other two being found at Agulhas and Betty’s Bay), over 100 bird species and around 16 seasonal wetlands. Fayruz is responsible for all environmental education, awareness and training, and community conservation for the site. She also plays a role in monitoring, data collection, and field ranger tasks. Fayruz grew up on a farm in Clanwilliam where she developed an interest in the environment inspired by her father. She started volunteering at the Kenilworth Racecourse Conservation Area in 2015, receiving a bursary through Kenilworth Racecourse to pursue her passion to study Nature Conservation. Fayruz loves to be in nature, hiking, bird watching, and going to the beach. She says, “I love animals, specifically birds and reptiles. One of my goals is to travel the world and explore the rest of the natural terrestrial and aquatic environment. I have come a long way from starting out with a low self-esteem and being insecure, to being independent and confident in what I do and stand for. CTEET has played a huge role in building me up not only as an educator and conservationist, but also as a person”. Well done on your achievements Fayruz. We are very proud of your growth. #changinglivesthroughnature
Today we celebrate National Children's Day in Sout Today we celebrate National Children's Day in South Africa and acknowledge the progress we have made as a country in the promotion of children's rights. At CTEET we believe in the benefits of environmental education and immersive experiences in the natural world for the holistic development of children. As part of our Conservation Leadership Programme we mentor children for the last seven years of their schooling in the hope that they will become custodians of our natural environment. We asked a few of them to tell us a little bit about their experiences in celebration of National Children's Day: "Being part of the Conservation Leadership Programme and CTEET really helped me find myself and gave me a much bigger voice to protect the environment. CTEET saved me from a little world that I didn't want for myself and gave me light on where I want to be one day" - Sheradon September "Imagine a world, where a 12-year old girl, from a small and not interesting life, has been granted the incredible opportunity to go out and discover the true joy of nature; you do not need to imagine it because the Conservation Leadership Programme through CTEET has offered girls like me that exact opportunity. A chance to escape into the earth, discover the real beauty of the world and educate us on how we can protect it for generations to come. It has been a great blessing and privilege to be part of the Conservation Leadership family." Josiane Habinshuti
  • MANDELA DAY 202030th July 2020 - 2:17 pm
  • Nature Conservation Graduates 201919th September 2019 - 9:15 am
  • ELECTRIFYING ECO-SCHOOLS5th September 2019 - 11:22 am

OUR MISSION

Supporting the preservation of Cape Town's unique
and biodiverse natural heritage through education,
training and conservation initiatives

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