Babonneau Secondary School Launches Conservation Project

The Babonneau Secondary School maintains its mandate to educate every student who attends the institution as well as to be a focal point for the community in terms of educational and cultural resources.

We have decided with the help of the Iyanola Project and LUCELEC, to embark on a project to help our students and the wider Babonneau community to begin thinking favourably about the Preservation and Conservation of indigenous species and culture within the
Babonneau/Iyanola project..

It is a fact that Babonneau is a culturally rich area with a plethora of indigenous flora and fauna. The problem is that many, especially those belonging to the younger generation,
seem to be disconnected from the community in terms of its cultural diversity as well as its
biodiversity.

The project aims to address this by helping students to be immersed in these areas
and creating a community-wide campaign geared toward educating all in Babonneau about the diversity that exists.

Project Background and Description of the Problem

The wealth of any community is directly related to its human and natural resources. In
both instances, there can be much to gain in terms of quality of life, livelihoods, and
sustainability for the members of a community.

Babonneau is rich in both human and natural resources. This project seeks to focus on how the human resource potential, i.e., the students and community members, can tap into the natural resources and develop a “Mindshift” in terms of the way the natural resources are perceived.

A lack of understanding of these components and inequitable use of the human resource capacity can have detrimental effects on our community, including river bank destabilization, deforestation, land slippage, species extinction, and poverty.

There is also a dearth of knowledge when it comes to the understanding of and passing on
cultural and traditional practices to the younger generations in the Babonneau communities.

Traditions like making cassava flour and condiments, learning traditional dances and practices, and keeping these traditions alive are important to our “Cultural Survival” as a people.

It is crucial that institutions like schools work on preserving these traditions and culture as a whole through oral history and digital formats with their students.

This project through the mediums of Arts Edutainment, Science, Mathematics, and Social
Studies including Information Technology, will seek to educate students as well as residents of Babonneau on the richness of the area and of ways we can help conserve and preserve our natural and cultural environments for future generations.

SOURCE: Babonneau Secondary School