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Leverage point one

Build Whole-School Environmental Stewardship

We help schools build the systems that keep environmental work going, through coaching, teacher training, curriculum-aligned resources and an online hub. Learners also experience the landscape directly, through in-school activities and overnight camps.

7 952learners reached through outdoor experiences over a 12 month period
208sustainability projects implemented and sustained by schools
The problem we address

Willingness is not the hard part

Schools across South Africa are willing to act on environmental issues. Turning that willingness into sustained practice is the hard part, and learners need direct experience of nature alongside it.

Environmental stewardship lasts when schools have systems, teachers have support and learners actually get to experience nature.

Education for Sustainable Development can easily become the sole responsibility of a single motivated teacher, an eco-club, or a handful of annual activities. When that person loses capacity or moves on, the work loses momentum. Many schools also sit at the centre of communities contending with pollution, biodiversity loss, and water and food insecurity, with little access to practical support.

At the same time, many young people grow up without meaningful access to green spaces or environmental learning beyond the classroom. Screen time, safety concerns and under-resourced communities can make nature something observed at a distance. Without direct contact, curiosity fades, and the idea of a career in nature never takes hold.

How we solve it

Two fronts at once

Structured school support strengthens the systems that allow environmental action to take root in teaching, planning, policy and everyday practice. Camps, excursions and in-school activities give learners direct experiences of nature that build curiosity, confidence and care.

Twenty-five years of this work has shown that a single committed teacher can start something real, and that only a system keeps it alive once they move on. To do this, we work across four focus areas.

Expand experiential nature learning

Day outings and overnight camps, most of them for learners who have never spent a night outside the city.

Strengthen teacher capability

Workshops, onboarding and SACE-endorsed development, so the work survives a teacher moving on.

Increase school environmental projects

Food gardens, recycling systems and water projects, assessed each year so a school can see what held.

Scale the schools model

An online hub that carries the model to schools our teams cannot reach in person.

“Through our sustainable vegetable garden, we were able to feed our learners, but mostly their needy families.”
Zamani Primary School, Gauteng
Two routes into schools

One builds the systems. The other takes learners outside.

Two routes carry this work into schools. One builds the systems that keep environmental action going year on year. The other takes learners out of the classroom and into the places the work is meant to protect.