The Environmental Education Programme (EEP) is one of the Initiatives of ISNAD-AFRICA which educates and empowers students in secondary schools in African countries.
The core Objectives of this Programme are set to;

  • Make Students identify Environmental challenges and needs in communities.
  • Develop solutions to the challenges by applying previously acquired knowledge from Science and Arts courses in school.
  • Encourage Team Work and implement the innovative projects supported by Advisors with relevant experience from across the globe.
  • Enable the students to acquire new knowledge and skills through project implementation, peer learning and mentorship.

The Programme kicked off with the visual presentation of a project named BIONET by the students of CAC Secondary School, Makurdi, Nigeria. They explained that, Bionet uses bio-digesters to convert household wastes and agricultural harvest by-products through the process of fermentation to produce clean cooking gas and the use of thermo-electrical generator which converts the heat into electrical energy by attaching a thermo-electric generator to the cooking gas stool which transmits the electrical energy to power household devices for a duration of 24 hours.

CAC Secondary School, Makurdi, Nigeria


bionet device

The next presentation was done by Ngora Girls Senior Secondary School, Cameroon who named their Project; NGORA GREEN ENVIRONMENT CAMPAIGN and their objectives center around sensitizing other students and community about environmental protection, increase in vegetation cover and clearing the wells to make the water usable.They talked about their challenges which were language barrier, time and mindset of the people in the community.

Ngora Girls while presenting

In quick succession after theirs, the Project presented by Government Bilingual High School, Cameroon was quite extensive as it included sensitization, classwork and study on waste management, deforestation and how to combat them. They shared their experience in tending to a farm to practise reforestation which enabled them to show others the process and the product derived from dry grasses cleared from the farm to produce manure for growing crops. The sensitization was done in their school on the five R’s of waste management which include Refuse, Reuse, Reduce, Repurpose and Recycle and also, a benevolent provision of two trashcans. A green trashcan harboring Non-degradable waste such as plastic items and papers while the red can was for the Bio-degradable waste like banana peels, orange peels. They even went further in sharing the knowledge with another school and planted a tree to show them that planting trees is important to the environment.
They also explained that the process of producing manure from grasses needs water (for humidity), leaves, sawdust. They applied sawdust and water adequately to the creeping grass and dry leaves. The manure process is daily and after 2 to 3 days of mixing, they added more water and sawdust to fasten the decomposition. They placed palm fronds on the field mixture where the manure is produced to reduce the rays of sun as they really needed it to be moist so as to prevent excess evaporation.It was shared that it takes about 2-3 months for the decomposition, after which the manure is ready to be used.
Questions posed at them for such a due process was about the duration it took to clear the field which they replied about a week with help from their classmates.

Manure by Government Bilingual High School, Cameroon

Business Senior High School, Ghana helped with a community problem which was the felling of trees as their Project. They identified the harm it caused in their environment. They identified that the main reason people cut down trees is the need for energy for cooking.
They decided to start using agricultural waste such as rice ban which they have in abundance in Ghana to enable the production of charcoal briskets. Firstly, the agriculture waste is gathered and carbonized thereafter to get the char which will be used to obtain charcoal briskets. After getting the char, they added starch to make it easy to convert and designed a local machine that can be used for compression. After mixing the char with starch, they compressed it into the shape they wanted and dried it which then makes it ready to be used. The charcoal is eco friendly as it is smokeless. The conclusion of their project was that the charcoal brisket can be produced within five hours in a day.
They had a community sensitization involving other schools they went to also educate them.

The Environmental Education Programme was drawn to a close with remarks and applauding comments from Ms. Sheri, her colleague and students from each class of Nysmith School USA who were also present to watch the Project Presentations.
The impacts of this Programme has been in Nigeria, South Africa. Cameroon, Uganda, Kenya, Ghana thus far.