Over the past years, l’École du Bon Berger worked to implement sustainability initiatives, alongside the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), on campus. So far, we have provided training for the school’s staff and teachers on the merits of the SDGs, added a dedicated course “Education for Sustainable Development” to our curriculum and opened the “Green Initiative” club for students.
This club provides a dedicated space to educate students on the importance of the SDGs using songs and poems, and also allows them to participate in activities such as reforestation, creation of nurseries for different plants, recycling of salvaged products and providing people in need with food and sanitary products.
We are happy to share that in recognition of the work done by our team and partner Rafiki Coffee, l’École du Bon Berger has recently received an SDG pioneer award, the first on the African continent.
In the near future we are planning to continue this important work to raise awareness of the challenges of sustainable development among the students of l’École du Bon Berger, as well as other youth in the Bugesera district, by organizing a half marathon event to share the benefits of the SDGs in our daily lives. For this occasion we will give food to people in need, identified in different areas of the Nyamata sector.
We are also looking to organize group visits in other schools in the Nyamata sector to teach the concept of waste management based on the 3 Rs there and distribute leaflets to the parents of all students illustrating and explaining our activities in relation to the SDGs.
Additionally, we are working on a long term project to install a wastewater treatment system on the school’s campus that will provide clean and safe drinking water to students and staff on site and can also be shared with people in the neighbourhood. We hope to create a self-sufficient system composed of a water pump and filter that can thus transform ground and rain water and is powered by solar panels that we are planning to install as the campus’s energy source.
Through all of these projects, we are targeting SDGs 2-7, 13 and 16-17.
Special thank you to our awarding partners: UNITAR Affiliated center, CIFAL Flanders and Director, Peter Wollaert and Belgium High Commissioner in Rwanda, Hon. Bert Versmessen