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Take a look at new photographs from our recent visit to Jameyana Primary School, as we delivered new boxes of Nkosi Superbars to very eager students and checked in on the food garden.
You will have seen us mention the Mpisi School before, and our work in helping this community school with a nutrition programme that includes donations of Nkosi supplementary bars and a food garden. Mpisi now goes by the name of Jameyana Primary School as it has grown and taken in new learners. Jameyana Primary School is a product of a process of merging Mpisi Junior Primary and Jameyana Higher Primary. It has a learner enrolment of 793 and consists of 24 new classrooms.
HERD’s continued involvement in Jameyana Primary School is helping to empower and inspire the up-and-coming generations throughout the local town of Acornhoek. It gives us immense joy and purpose to be able to give back to our community in different and important ways, to show new generations the value of conservation and the development it enables. Conservation work’s success depends on the participation of local people and as such we work to share awareness of the elephants and the opportunities they help create for our community.
HERD’s ambassador elephant greets the little students, sharing awareness and a love of our beloved herd and the elephant species we work to protect with them.
Through HERD, we have been able to run a women’s empowerment initiative, the JabuLadies, create jobs for local people, welcome school students to meet the elephants in our reserve, and contribute to the development of institutes like Jameyana Primary School in our area.
We can’t look after elephants in isolation, we need to involve people so they can see why elephants need saving.
In 2021, we implemented an on-campus vegetable garden at Jameyana Primary School, providing daily nutritional and economic support for the school. The vegetable garden also teaches the pupils how to grow their own food and how to utilise the produce effectively in the kitchen. The garden includes a row of young fruit trees which will soon be providing delicious, healthy fruits for pupils to enjoy throughout the day.
The HERD team check up on the fresh produce now growing in the school’s food garden.
Additionally, HERD has been working to provide the school with monthly deliveries of Nkosi bars. These supplementary bars are high in energy and nutritional value and are aimed at providing short and long-term benefits for young students. We are grateful for the support of NTT Toyota Hoedspruit and Jabulani lodge in the Kapama Private Game Reserve for contributing to the cost of the Nkosi Superbars. Freight Care Logistics also donates towards the monthly courier cost from Johannesburg to Hoedspruit for all the Nkosi Superbar boxes.
The progress of the Community Nutrition Project is recorded every three months. The team visits the school to weigh and measure the pupils, taking note of health and weight gain. The initiative is still in the early days so the long-term effects are yet to be determined, however, teachers have reported higher levels of work ethic and concentration in class as a result of the Nkosi Superbars.
Should you wish to support this project, you can do so here >
