Life skills integration in environmental awareness and global citizenship in Zanzibar

• In Event: “Lessons of Life skills education implementation and advocacy in Tanzania”

Proposal

Healthy and Sustainable Schools Program (HSSP) is a result of Sazani Associates UK and Sazani Trust Zanzibar’s ongoing partnership with the Ministry of Education to improve the quality of education, learning and life skills in Zanzibar. The Healthy and Sustainable Schools Program brings together education for sustainable development, health promotion and enterprise training. It provides schools with contextualized teaching guides and support that addresses aspects of healthy and sustainable development. It is a whole school approach to improving the quality of education as well as developing healthy and sustainable life skills. A more detailed exploration of the programme and how it fits into a post-colonial agenda can be found in the Bloomsbury Handbook of Global Education (2020).

These teaching guides focusing on the combined importance of key skills, healthy and sustainable life skills. Each Teaching Guide is themed and contextualized to bring Zanzibar youth and contrasting localities into a classroom setting and to make learning engaging, life skills and relevant to local livelihoods.
The program aimed to encourage a whole school approach to sustainable development through integration of education for sustainability, health promotion and enterprise development into all aspects of school life. This program purposely intended to strengthen and augment a whole school approach - including primary-secondary linkage, Introduce concepts of sustainable enterprise within the school and community, raise awareness of global issues such as climate change, improve pupil and teacher self-esteem, and improving the school learning environment.

There has been a number of good result concerning the life skills aspect; students have become more aware on the need and how to preserve their surrounded environment, they have learnt how to conserve and use their environment, to solve some problems such as planting vegetables around the school area, local herbals which are used to help them in health problem like stomach, influenza, and headache problems. This approach to developing critical thinking and contextual understanding of issues such as health and climate change, supporting solution orientated thinking and action. ‘Diabetes accounts for more than 50% of all deaths at the hospital” Hormone epidemiologist Yussuf Ameir Haji says at Mnazi Moja Referral Hospital and evidence shows that a continued lack of health awareness issues has led to many deaths in the community (Grace Kiondo, 2021)

Climate change is a critical global issue which is starting to have major impacts across Tanzania. Teachers and students were able to select three main topics for investigation all linked to wider environmental matters but imbedded in an understanding of climate change. Example areas of solutions students were supported to develop include marine plastic waste, fishing practices and conservation of coastal and marine environment, within the context of “Blue Solutions”. Both Sazani Associates and Sazani Trust promote an inclusive, participatory approach to problems solving, recognising that communities most affected by climate change also hold part of the solution.

Author

• Safia Abdalla, Sazani Trust