ECD can draw on ancient wisdom to teach children about the environment

Attending the Grindrod Family Centenary Trust ECD Climate Change Workshop on 23 January 2025 was truly inspiring.

I left armed with a whole lot of new information, relieved that communities and ECD practitioners are responding to climate change’s challenges and playing a pivotal role in creating experiential learning opportunities for children.?

Here’s what we know:

• A curriculum framework exists, but it needs informed ECD practitioners to bring it to life in a creative, playful manner
• South Africa’s social justice sector steps up to advocate and even litigate when the government acts unconstitutionally
• South Africa’s private sector funders may grasp the impact of climate change, but have a long way to go in understanding the importance of integrating climate change-related mitigations into ECD programmes, and how to achieve this

This is what we learnt in more detail:

Duncan Hay, director of the Nature’s Valley Trust, explained that, if South Africa’s citizens are to weather the storm of climate change, we need strong leaders taking bold decisions focused on implementing resilient infrastructure to better prepare for, and respond to, climate change-related disasters.

Sasha Stevenson, CEO of social justice organisation Section27, explained how climate change presents a human rights risk in South Africa. She said the most vulnerable people – women and children – face the most severe impacts and that it is critical that civil society holds the government to account.

Sasha said climate change has a negative impact on South Africa’s education and health systems in the following ways:

• ?It disrupts children’s access to education, for example as a result of severe storms
• It causes an increase in pre-term births through the effects of extreme heat, air pollution and social vulnerability

These challenges have knock-on effects. Premature births pose health risks for mothers and infants, resulting in an additional burden on public hospitals. They’re also an education risk, because they lead to an increased propensity to learning challenges.

The effects of climate change often lead to food insecurity, increasing the incidence of stunting in children, which also leads to learning challenges, Sasha explained.

She noted that South Africa is lucky to have robust civil society organisations focused on upholding our constitutional rights and holding the government accountable to the treaties it has signed and legislation it has passed.

?The intersection of climate change and ECD?

Once the scene was set, the workshop moved on to explore the intersection of ECD and climate, magnificently facilitated by Dr Joanne Peers, head of academics at the Centre for Creative Education in Cape Town.

She reminded us of South Africa’s deep well of indigenous knowledge and the wisdom of our ancestors, saying South Africans should embrace that knowledge and reflect on the role humans must play in caring for our planet.

Joanne went on to explain that ECD practitioners should ensure that children have space to exercise their curiosity, creativity and connection to places, space, the land and each other. “Children are on the ground interacting with it, close to it, we need to instill the love of the land by providing the knowledge,” she said.

She called on adults to sit on the ground when they speak to children and be open to learning from them, because they still hold within themselves “the wisdom of the place” and a deep understanding of the interconnectedness of humans and environment.

“We must use storytelling to engage children and impart indigenous knowledge. They must continue the ancient wisdom and be custodians of sustainability.”

Joanne called on ECD practitioners to take a step back from the curriculum, resist conventional forms of learning and knowledge and look to indigenous knowledge for its connection to the environment.

One of the panelists was Likho Bottoman, director for social cohesion and equity in education at the Department of Basic Education.

He reminded the workshop attendees that the school curriculum covers environmental education and that it’s teachers’ role to bring this aspect to life. “We must encourage teachers and give them the freedom to do this. It is not a case of overhauling the curriculum, it is there, look for it,” he said.

Exhibition

The event ended with an exhibition showcasing how four ECD-focused organisations from different contexts in KwaZulu-Natal are integrating environmental sustainability into their teachings, creating experiential learning opportunities for young children and, in some cases, creating sites that operate completely off-grid, from harvesting water and growing food to turning manure from livestock into biogas for electricity on-site.

The younger children are when they are first taught and engaged in sustainability practices, the more likely they are to be resilient and dedicated to stewarding our planet.

May these pioneers – Lulamaphiko (Funda Engadini programme) https://lulamaphiko.org/; The Kinship Programme https://www.kinshipprogramme.com/; Thanda Community Centre https://thanda.org/; and The Birches Pre-Primary School https://www.thebirchespp.co.za/ – continue to encourage and inspire, and may philanthropy water the many seeds already planted by the ECD practitioners operating under difficult circumstances. I salute your good work!