Environmental Education Short Courses

Lets Protect the environment 

Global Waste Cleaning Network has some amazing Environmental Education Courses 

The courses include 

1: Understanding Environmental Education and Education for Sustainable Development!

The course introduces you to the basic foundations of Environmental Education (EE) and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), including their origins and the educational processes connected to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

2: Strategies to Advance Circular Economy

Circular Economy provides a regenerative framework to design a production and consumption system in which materials are used in cycles of closed loops. The course provides you with an overview of the concept of Circular Economy, its principles and introduces how the principles are being used to shift from a linear economy to a circular economy. 

3: Introduction to Environmental Literacy

This course will introduce you to the basics of Environmental Literacy, by providing you with an overview of the environmental literacy concept and its components. The course, divided into 6 Modules, will also present to you the bases of environmental literacy excellence and how you can create your own logic model for environmental literacy assessment.

These courses will help you as an environmental activist understand the fundamental principles of environmental literacy and equips you with enough knowledge to share during Environmental Awareness Campaigns 

To enrol visit http://www.gwcnweb.org/ and search the courses under the Education tab.

Happy learning!!

NYANGANI MOUNTAIN-THE BEAUTIFUL AND MYSTERIOUS PRIDE OF MANICALAND

 

Nyangani Mountain Eastern Highlands Zimbabwe

Nyangani Mountain is found in the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe

It is the highest mountain in Zimbabwe standing at 2.592 meters (8.504 ft) and is in the Nyanga National Park North West of the Manicaland Provincial Capital and Eastern Border City of Mutare.

Africa's second longest waterfall Mutarazi Falls is in Nyangani Mountain.

Nyangani mountain is mostly covered by mist throughout the year and the vegetation is evergreen along the slopes of the mountain.

The mountains annual rainfall is  2200 mm during the warm and  rainy summers and it gets cold and dry winters from May -August.

Mysteries of Nyangani Mountain

A lot of mysteries have happened in Nyangani Mountain most of them involving the disappearence of tourists and locals leading to most historians and traditionalists  associating the disappearances with some mythical explanations of sacredness of the holy mountain .

The Traditional Chiefs of Nyanga mainly Chief Tangwena, Chief Saunyama and Chief Katerere have been asked to perform some traditional ancestor appeasing rituals in many cases where tourists who visit the mountains goes missing without trace.

In 1981 a former Zimbabwean top government official Tichaendepi Masaya lost his 2 little daughters in that mountain and they have not been found up to this day.

Another mysterious disapperance is of an 8 year old white tourist Robert Ackhurst who vanished in that mountain never to be seen again.

Zayd Dada a mountain hiker of Asian descent also mysteriously disappeared he proceeded with the hike when his wife and another couple gave up the hike halfway.

Mysterious disappearances in the mountain are real but there is a huge debate among people from different beliefs

Some traditionalists thinks that there is a vindictive spiritual presence on the mountain that makes those who mocks the ancestors or say or do certain things that angers them to disappear.

Some local people say that there is a "strange colourful snake" a smoldering clay pot with no fire burning around it that needs to be ignored when you see them as showing signs of shock or pointing at the mystery leads to your forever vanishing.

Other group believes that since Nyangani Mountain is home to a lot of leopards,venomous snakes and other dangerous wild animals those who disappeared could be victims of such.

Also there are a lot of slippery areas that could see tourists slipping into deep places after one single stepping mistake.

Rock boulders also fall from the mountain summit and roll down to the foot which may result in fatalities if they are to meet human beings or animals during the process.

HEAVY RAINS HITS KwaZULU NATAL-MORE EXPECTED TO HIT CAPE TOWN

A traffic round -about destroyed by heavy floods in KZN

Heavy rainfall has hit a South African province, KwaZulu Natal.

At least 459 people have been reported dead by the time of publishing.

A lot of infrastructure and properties have been damaged, Houses could be seen drowning like mother earth is swallowing them.

Containers of goods, trucks and cars are seen covered in water, Highways looking like straight rivers.

It's really an eyesore, The damage caused by this floods is so disturbing.

Among the prominent damaged buildings is a Blind People's home, A big number of blind people were left homeless after the shelter was damaged.

Roads got destroyed during the KZN storm

Authorities reported that they had opened community halls in their efforts to assist the affected residents with shelter.

Climate change has resulted in parts of Southern Africa being hit by cyclones that have seen Mozambique and parts of Zimbabwe hit by 2 cyclones in a short space of time.

Climate change activists are calling for people to take their advice seriously and reduce their carbon emissions.

Speaking to SABC News , Climate Change and Energy activist Thandile Chinyavanhu warned that authorities in Cape Town must be prepared for similar or worse storms in the near future.
 

A DISASTER IN WAITING FOR HARARE RESIDENTS

 

Homeless people exposed to environmental health hazards

By Environmental Correspondent

Harare-Zimbabwe

Poor waste management by the City of Harare has seen the Copacabana bus terminus looking like a newly established landfill.

All sorts of waste can be seen scattered all over the place with the few skip bins available reaching over their carrying capacity and over spilling.

"They don't collect waste here, We last saw them a long time ago, The bins are full and overflowing as you can see my brother". said one commuter who pleaded for anonymity.

The political showdown between the Zanu-PF-led national government and the opposition MDC-Alliance which controls Harare's local government business is being blamed for all this irresponsible behavior.

The two political rivals are focusing on exposing each other at the expense of ratepayers and creating a big health hazard in the process.

Mixed waste causing an offensive smell in Harare

Poor waste management in urban areas normally results in the spread of waterborne diseases like cholera and typhoid.

One opposition politician, Jacob Ngarivhume who leads Transform Zimbabwe has been denied permission to do voluntary clean up work in the city's high-density suburbs including the highly populated Mbare.

Police cited covid 19 regulations in denying Ngarivhume a permit to clean the area which is so disturbing as we have seen certain people being allowed to gather thousands of people for no good reason than just being cheered up and praised.

Residents, commuters and environmental and human rights activists are appealing to the responsible authorities to put their political games on pause and focus on serious governance business if they need to be voted back into office in the upcoming local government by elections and the watershed 2023 Harmonised elections.

SOLUTIONS TO WATER CRISIS AND POLLUTION IN URBAN AREAS

 

A river passes through an urban residential area.

Rivers and streams that pass through urban areas are the most polluted due to various factors ...Rivers transport clean safe water from their source high up in mountains or middle of deep forests up until they pass through a town or city.

Some of the major factors why water pollution is so rampant in urban areas include poor sewage and waste management systems and deliberate illegal dumping of pollutants from both residential, agricultural, and industrial areas

Illegal dumping of Waste leads to water and environmental pollution 

When there is a poor refuse collection service in any residential area illegal dumping is inevitable. 

Residents need proper refuse collection services or education on how to sort their waste for recycling purposes. 

Another contributor to water pollution is manufacturing factories that have no proper waste management plan.

Most of these factories secretly dump their wastewater which contains highly toxic chemicals in water sources. 

Some of these pollutants include dye from textile factories, oil from Engineering, and other manufacturing industries that produce waste oil.

To stop illegal dumping which is a major cause of water pollution Municipalities need to provide a reliable waster collection, transportation, and sewage treatment system.

Residents also need to be educated about the dangers of their actions when they dispose of their waste at illegal sites.

There should also be mass Awareness Campaigns teaching residents about clean water and wastewater management in all urban areas where residents can be taught how to recycle their wastewater and reuse it for other purposes before letting it evaporate back to its natural cycle. 

Leaking taps should be fixed in time and blocked sewage drains should be cleaned to prevent them from bursting as that may cause serious Environmental health hazards. 

Industries need to be strictly penalized if caught dumping any form of waste by the county's Environmental regulations and legislation.