AKU engages pupils in environment cleaning

THE Aga Khan University (AKU) in Tanzania has partnered with pupils from Muhimbili and Olympio primary schools in Dar es Salaam to clean their schools’ surroundings, plant trees and flowers to commemorate the World Environment Day.

As the global theme for the commemoration is “Beat plastic pollution”, they used the opportunity to also raise awareness on the global plastic waste crisis as well as devised more sustainable practices to contain the situation.

While plastics provide many benefits for modern day living, their waste are  widely recognised as a local and global problem as they take hundreds of years to degrade, takes up valuable space in landfill sites and is polluting the environment and oceans.

A student from AKU Khadija Ismail Suleiman who took part at the event yesterday said environment and climate is a core strategic priority and crosscutting theme at the university.

“In accelerating AKU’s value further, the university decided to mark the Environment Day by raising awareness on waste management particularly plastics among pupils who are key change agents to a culture of sustainability and innovation,” said Khadija.

She revealed that plastic pollution was becoming catastrophic globally, therefore AKU aim to equip necessary knowledge and skill among the pupil on correct waste management and separation.

The college and staff planted 40 trees, 20 flowers and supplied the schools with dust bins to enable proper management of waste.

For her part, a teacher at Muhimbili Primary School, Ms Aika Mgeni observed that the event was in line with the schools’ core values of keeping the environment clean and tidy.

“As you can witness, our school environment is clean and decorated with trees and flowers. We thank AKU for supporting our endeavor,” stated Ms Mgeni indicating that through the environment club that has been introduced by AKU their pupils will become very good ambassadors on environmental management practices.

A standard four pupil at Muhimbili Primary School, Haroun Juma pledged to make good use of the knowledge of using plastic water bottles to plant flowers and maintain small vegetable nurseries at home and through teaching his peers.