GLM TEAM 
People around the globe will mark World Environment Day on 5 June 2024, with a campaign focused on land restoration, desertification and drought resilience under the slogan “Our land. Our future. We are #GenerationRestoration”.
Social movement days like this one are important in raising awareness, but action needs to take place every day – and there are plenty of organisations right here at home which work tirelessly to save our precious environment.
Conservation & Education
Roots & Shoots is a program of the Jane Goodall Institute and is a global movement of youth who are empowered to use their voice and actions to make compassionate decisions, create positive influence and lead change in their communities. It builds on Dr. Goodall’s legacy and vision of placing the power and responsibility to the youth of today and tomorrow to create solutions to challenges faced by people, animals and the environment.
Roots & Shoots aims to inspire, empower and encourage young people all over the world by showing them how to follow their passions, take action together and become the change our world needs. Roots & Shoots is about understanding, selecting and implementing projects to make the world a better place. It is about learning to live in peace and harmony, not only with each other, but with the natural world. Since 1991, over 12 000 groups involving a total of nearly 790 000 participants in over 62 countries have taken on the challenge of making the world a better place for the environment, animals and people. Roots & Shoots youth are not only the future – they are the present, and they are changing the world.
An important lesson to take from their work is that saving the environment is as much about education as it is about action. Through their initiatives like the Greening Club – which introduces youth across South Africa to a holistic approach of making positive change through recycling, photography, animal and tree identification, bird watching, conservation education, climate change, team development, public speaking and debate, healthy living and much more and ‘Greening My Community & Food Gardens’ – which empowers and assists young people to create sustainable food gardens in their communities – they are establishing sustainable solutions to planet protection.
Conservation & Job Creation
When the development of Century City, just outside Cape Town, began in 1996, the 250 hectare area was largely covered by invasive alien vegetation and a number of degraded wetlands. A large number of water birds used one of these wetlands and the surrounding flooded vegetation as a breeding site. The decision was taken to create a multi-purpose nature reserve in the centre of the development – which became Intaka Island. The Intaka Island and Eco-Centre now plays host to a range of visitors ranging from pensioners and school groups to corporate training functions and birthday parties.
The Intaka Island Trust – a Beneficiary of MySchool MyVillage MyPlanet – was established as the fundraising vehicle for both the construction of the Eco‑Centre as well as its ongoing operational costs. The Trust runs a number of environmental education programs out of the multi-functional Eco-Centre. A team of 9 staff have been employed to run the Eco-Centre and its related programs and activities, creating jobs, empowering and upskilling people.
Conservation & Action
Volunteers from Kloof in KZN have come together to improve and care for spaces in their city including landscaping and maintaining indigenous islands and beds in the CBD, picking up litter, removing graffiti from walls, maintaining an alien species-free pedestrian trail along the railway line, liaising with council on infrastructure repairs, washing street signs and plenty more – in an initiative known as The Kloof Project.
Their work helps make their community cleaner and safer and shows a level of environmental stewardship that is an example to the rest of the country – and the world.
MySchool MyVillage MyPlanet customers are able to support the work of organisations like these – and many others – each time they swipe their MySchool card or linked Woolworths card when they shop, at no cost to them, by selecting the organisations as Beneficiaries. “Environmental awareness is vital – but environmental action is even more important,” explains Naeema Alexander, who looks after CSI Implementation at MySchool/Woolworths. “We’re proud to support organisations which not only work to save the planet, but also spread the word, educate and upskill people and demonstrate an infectious community spirit”.
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