Club P.A.N.-Environmental education promotes chimpanzee conservation
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Club P.A.N students celebrate local biodiversity
WCF/Club P.A.N
Education is a long-term priority for the conservation of chimpanzees and other wildlife. In 2007, the MPI conservation group, and the WCF, created Club P.A.N for schools in West Africa. The project’s aim is to discourage children living near wild chimpanzee habitats from consuming bush-meat and to enable them to be pro-active in biodiversity conservation. Club P.A.N. is active in schools around the Taï National Park in Côte d’Ivoire and schools in Guinea from around the newly approved Moyen-Bafing National Park.
Last update: 02 Oct 2020
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Context
Challenges addressed
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species lists chimpanzees as endangered. They have disappeared in three West African countries and the main threats are habitat loss and hunting for bush-meat. Tropical forests were once widespread but continue to decline. We have first-hand experience working in Taï NP, and were concerned by the level of hunting and environmental degradation. This motivated us to create Club P.A.N.
Location
Tai, Moyen-Cavally, Côte d'Ivoire
West and Central Africa
Process
Summary of the process
Club P.A.N.’s success depends on all five building blocks coming together to form a strong educational programme with multiple ways in transmitting and encouraging conservation education. First we needed to find our local partners that get the authorization and implement the program. Our key partner is the CPE, with direct connections to the Ministies of Education and Environment and to the Office Ivoirien des Parcs et Réserves. They maintained the authorization of the program and they implement the program since its inception. Together with the WCF and the Conservation Group they conduct the teacher training workshops each year (building block 2), they implement the program around the school curriculum, find new schools, conduct the Club P.A.N. lesson plans, and evaluations (building block 3), organize Parents Days to involve adults (building block 4) and carry out the school micro-projects (building block 5).
Building Blocks
Recruit local partners for support and implementation
Club P.A.N. was created out of inspiration from Club Ebobo the nature clubs of the Wild Conservation Society. The Primate Conservation Group approached the Wild Chimpanzee Foundation because they were working in Côte d’Ivoire since 2000 and already had good connections to the “Cellule des Projets Environnementaux” (CPE). CPE is the key partner here, with direct connections to government ministries. They obtain the authorizations and implement Club P.A.N. since its start. Together with WCF and the Primate Conservation Group the CPE conduct the teacher training, plan the program around the school curriculum, conduct the sessions, evaluations, ‚Parents Days‘ and micro-projects.
Enabling factors
Have good local and governmental connections of responsible local people. Through motivated local staff and personnel a project’s communication network is expanded and strengthened, which ultimately contributes to its success.
Lesson learned
It is always good to have an additional volunteer supervising the project implementation and financial accounting, since local organizations may still need capacity building and training on computers and support in obtaining technical equipment such as cameras. Importantly, we have documented a significant increase in positive attitudes towards chimpanzees and biodiversity conservation among children that participate in the Club P.A.N programme (Borchers et al. 2013). This positive difference, although not directly comparable to chimpanzee abundance, does motivate continued participation, by teachers, students and villagers, in Club P.A.N activities and thus increases public sensitization for chimpanzee conservation. Recent research from our group also supports that education does positively impact species populations and biodiversity conservation (Junker et al. 2015).
Empower local teachers through capacity building
All teachers and principals are trained with much care at the beginning of each school year. A workshop for 3 days is conducted to guarantee that the lesson plans, sessions and activities will have the utmost impact. We go though all sessions with the participants and also conduct all outdoor activities and experiments planned for the children. Together, we improve games, songs and theater plays.
Enabling factors
Participation, motivation, engaging and enthusiastic trainers, good materials, nice training environment (we conduct training workshops outside for direct relevance to the material being discussed as well as a comfortable, healthy environment for participants).
Lesson learned
The first school year showed that teachers and school principals needed to be trained intensively because their capacities were not enough to teach the program. They were happy for the extra effort and advice on how to teach well so that they could engage their students better. The skills they acquire during this training workshop can also be applied to the other disciplines that they also teach the children as part of the regular curriculum.
Ecosystem and biodiversity lesson plans and evaluation
12 Club P.A.N. sessions are held in outdoor nature classrooms. Sessions typically involve fact sheets, activities, role playing, songs and games with animal puppets which are based around a chosen theme. Themes deal with ecosystem services, wildlife conservation, sustainability, healthy living and the importance of biodiversity. We aim to promote positive club spirit through interactive ways of learning and essentially having fun.
Enabling factors
Each child that participates receives his/her own Club P.A.N. book and T-shirt. Each child participates in pre- and post evaluation questionnaires which aid in refining sessions year after year to better suit the audience, as well as accrue funding for the project.
Lesson learned
An extra lesson was added to the Club P.A.N curriculum in 2012 where children were given a small budget to carry out their own mini-conservation-project. They find this support incredibly motivating. Past project examples included planting trees, cleaning village water pumps, and even a goat farm.
Involve adults too through ‚Parents Days‘
At the end of every school year, Club P.A.N. hosts a Parents’ Day, where all village members are invited to watch their children perform and discuss their sessions. This ensures that not only children, but also parents and villagers are also exposed to conservation education in a fun atmosphere. This also creates pride in the village for their younger generation and the children in turn feel proud of what they have learned and are more eager to share their knowledge.
Enabling factors
Invite local authorities (ministers) to these events and give them the possibility to speak in front of the audience so that they can show the value of the program and their governments support for the participation of the parents and villagers in the program.
Lesson learned
Send invitations early, so that the audience is as big as possible. It is also advisable to plan a small budget for the invitation of local authorities and ministers to provide food and drinks after the celebrations, to thank them for their support and presence at the event. They will appreciate this extra effort and in turn be more likely to support future events.
School micro-projects instill responsibility and pride
Every school participating in Club P.A.N. is motivated to carry out their own alternative livelihoods micro-project such as a fish, goat, chicken, cane rat, or snail farm. The schools are given a small budget for start-up costs but are then supposed to be self-reliant. Principals and teachers become heads of these projects while children are given the responsibility to build and maintain the project by caring for the animals. A sense of local entrepreneurship is seen in the children.
Enabling factors
Success is dependent on having key individuals that are motivated and inspired by the idea of having their own farm within the village to provide an alternative protein source. It also requires dedicated and committed leaders to keep participation high, otherwise projects will fail.
Lesson learned
Some animals are easier cared for than others, and depending on the species the start-up costs for a farm can vary. For some farms, such as fish farms, these require a larger investment of money and people so it is best suited for a large school and a big village. The major difficulty we still struggle with is keeping these projects going in the long-term. This is especially pertinent during summer holidays, since with no students or teachers around the farms and animals will be neglected. One must have committed and motivated teachers responsible for the management of the farm to ensure participation of former students and villagers in order to keep the farm running. Another difficulty is keeping people interested since profits from the farm are delayed and depend on allowing the animals to grow and mature. We are still struggling to find innovative solutions for some of our micro-project challenges.
Impacts
Evaluation results from past school-years found that participation in Club P.A.N. significantly increased environmental knowledge and positively influenced attitudes towards nature (Borchers et al. 2013). Micro-projects were successfully established in Club P.A.N. schools to teach children farming techniques of domesticated animals (fish, snails, goats, chicken) as alternative protein sources compared to bush-meat hunting. Only if we can present and teach alternatives to bush-meat hunting will the children find a way to live in harmony with nature in the future.
Beneficiaries
School children, teachers and principles and parents and villagers.
Story
Our local Club P.A.N. coordinator (since the start of the program in 2007), Hilaire Guilahoux from CPE/WCF has received the Charles Southwick Conservation Education Commitment Award 2014 from the International Primatological Society for his great work in West Africa. Hilaire not only implemented the program in his home country year after year, but also bought the program to Guinea where he trained the teachers and principals there and helped to establish the program. Hilaire has always placed emphasis on local children having realized that they are the answer to the future of the preservation of the local wildlife. He keeps on saying “learn for nature – act for nature”. He is creating green spaces and waste systems in all schools where he is working. Hilaire is an outstanding African conservationist with the potential to become a key figure in integrating environmental education at a national level in the school curriculum in Côte d’Ivoire. Hilarire is a local conservation hero and an inspiration to Ivorians who see his success and passion for the environment, wildlife, as well as his people. Teachers like Hilaire are the key to the success of Club P.A.N, great conservationists that understand the value of their rich local flora and fauna and want to motivate new conservationists in the next generation.
Connect with contributors
Other contributors
Ammie Kalan
Club P.A.N
Julia Riedel
Wild Chimpanzee Foundation
Mimi Arandjelovic
Club P.A.N
