Snow Leopard Conservancy -- Junior Ranger Report

Some of the teachers who took part in the training

Some of the teachers who took part in Junior Ranger Teacher Training

Preliminary Report on Junior Ranger Program

By Binod Dhakal, District Coordinator for the Program and Nagendra Budhathoki Snow Leopard Conservancy’s Education Program Officer for Nepal

A Teacher Training was held in Dunai, Dolpa during 24 - 26 July 2002. The training was conducted through APPA approach to introduce Environmental Education and Junior Ranger Program to teachers from 10 schools within snow leopard habitat in Dolpa district. The objectives of the training:

To provide clear knowledge and understanding of the Junior Ranger Program, its goals and objectives.
To introduce Junior Ranger curriculum to participating teachers and to provide necessary skills to run Junior Ranger sessions in respective school.
To introduce basic principles and tools of APPA and Appreciative Inquiry among teachers, so they can use those skills and tools to run Junior Ranger sessions.

Students at work on the Jr. Ranger curriculum

Binod Dhakal was then able to visit seven of the ten schools in the program, missing three because of safety considerations due to the political situation in Nepal.

In general the schools are doing well. This year we were delayed due in part to access and transportation problems, with no scheduled flights into Dunai. Some schools went quickly through the program because of their government examinations, and other considerations. This year, the activities are going on according to our schedule. All the teachers are planning to complete their session in falgun (mid-March to mid-Feb) so they can distribute prizes to Junior Rangers. Also they will do tree plantations in their school areas.

But at last the program is under way, and very interesting and successful. We found people positive about this program. Bhagwati Lower Secondary School of Rimi village (which we could not visit) reported that villagers are doing cooperation with the school, and there is keen interest. Some Headmasters who did not involve all the students in this program are hearing complaints from the parents, because they believe their children are able to do this course too.

By getting the experience from this year we recommend that in future we begin preparations earlier.

The schools visited were:

Kasturi Lower Secondary School, Pahada village, Maddhu Lower Secondary School, Maddhu village, Jyoti Primary School, Ruma village, Balbhadra Primary School, Rashi village, Saraswati High School and Dunai Boarding School in Dunai, and Bhakti Thapa Primary School in Lawan village.

Schools reporting but not visited:

Suva Kamana Primary School in Raha village, Bhagwati Lower Secondary School in Rimi village, and Araniko Lower Secondary School in Sahartara village.

Of a total of 19 chapters in the curriculum, schools completed a minimum of 12 and a maximum of 18. Activities carried out included building rubbish pits and a toilet, school repair, planting trees and other plants (up to 20 species) around the school, school-to-school exchanges, village clean-ups, awareness campaign against fire in the jungle, drawing competition, poster competition, bazaar cleaning campaign, weekly cleaning of children’s forest, environmental conservation training, making a stage in school for different programs, field trips for nature education, bird watching, and an essay competition about wildlife and their values. One school called a ranger from Shey-Phoksundo National Park for a discussion.

Junior Rangers

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