The DRFN through its Orange-Senqu River Learning Box project conducted a teachers’ workshop in Mariental on the 4 and 5 of November. The workshop was aimed at providing the participants the opportunity to collate recommendations on the RLB in order to strengthen the contents of RLB materials to ensure that they are relevant to the Namibian context.
The teachers provided feedback on the following:
• Usefulness and challenges of using the RLB as well as suggestions to improve
• Provide statistics of learners who benefited from the RLB for each school
• Actions on how the school plans to take the RLB further once the project comes to an end (sustainability)
Some of the of sustainability measures of the RLB that the schools want to undertake is including the RLB on the term planner, getting volunteers from communities to provide extra afternoon classes and continuous induction of the RLB to avoid memory loss.
During the workshop the teachers were given the opportunity to present their teaching methods of the RLB materials and how they assessed the understanding of learners. An activity from the RLB called the Stream Assessment Scoring System (MiniSASS) which is a tool used to monitor river health was conducted on a wetland outside the Mariental town to equip the teachers with knowledge on how to conduct the SASS at their schools with learners.
