Mitigating climate change by learning from indigenous cultures and sacred sites
In the Limpopo province of South Africa, industrial development is laying waste to the extraordinarily biodiversity of the area. Children are removed from their communities to go to western style schools and are never exposed to the knowledge in their culture. There is a 50% unemployment rate, most children finish school never to get a job and in addition do not have the livelihood skills of their grandparents.
This project will work to bring elders and youth together so that elders can transfer their knowledge to a new generation that understands the fragility of life support systems and on how to make a living from the natural environment. The key aim of the project is to embed local, indigenous knowledge into the school system. It will set up nurseries for endangered trees, medicinal plants, and traditional food crops and provide practical skills to make a living. The children will also learn thatching, processing and preparing traditional foods and will be taken out into the wilderness by the elders to learn about their environment and indigenous practices.
