Our school was recently invited back to attend Dr Jane Goodall’s annual Roots & Shoots Awards at The Barbican Centre. Dr Jane is the world’s leading expert on chimpanzees and is a passionate, life-long campaigner of animal conservation and environmental issues. In September 2016 we started to run her ‘Roots & Shoots’ environmental club in school: www.rootsnshoots.org.uk
We were delighted to win the ‘Most Outstanding Group Award’ for our environmental work last year and were invited back as guests this time. We took 2 of our ‘Dulwich Prep Eco Warriors’, George (in Year 4) and Shuen (in Year 2), and they helped source future environmental projects from exhibitors. We watched a highly creative ‘Trashion’ show with clothes made entirely from re- and upcycled materials, enjoyed a wonderful vegetarian lunch in the beautiful Conservatory and made new contacts with other schools who are also following the Roots & Shoots and Eco-Schools programmes.
As always, thank you to all our Eco Warriors for the hard work and commitment they have shown to caring for the environment this year.
George wrote:
My favourite bit was meeting Dr Jane Goodall and hearing her speech about Roots and Shoots and her project to save the world from pollution. She gives people HOPE that good will happen to the world.
The Eco fashion show was weird but wonderful. School children were modelling clothes made from anything recyclable such as milk bottle lids, Tesco bags and coffee cups. It was strange and fun at the same time! I also enjoyed seeing other schools ideas for inspiration. It was a great day.
Shuen added:
It was an honour for me to finally meet Dr. Jane Goodall at Roots and Shoots event at the Barbican Centre. As an Eco warrior from Dulwich Prep, I was shocked to hear that people are killing adult chimpanzees and selling their babies as pets. Alarmingly, plastic waste from us are harming nature around the world, and in the end we suffer from our own act. At the event, children were encouraging people to save nature by recycling and reusing things. I was really impressed by the fashionable clothing made from plastic packages of crisps and beautiful little handbags made from empty juice bottles. Litter the world or clean the world, I really hope we all make the right choice!
