On Friday 3rd March we were lucky enough to be invited to attend Dr Jane Goodall’s Roots & Shoots Annual Awards at The Barbican Centre in London. We were one of around 14 schools selected nationally and felt very privileged to go. 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 invited to take 5 of our ‘Dulwich Prep Eco Warriors’ to the awards to represent the school: Kasper (2D), Max (2D), Edward (3C), Sebby (4D) and Ruairí (5L). We had the most wonderful and inspiring day! The boys helped put together a display showcasing our environmental work and talked Dr Jane through our projects confidently, articulately and with passion which impressed everyone around. We had a fabulous vegetarian lunch in the beautiful conservatory, next to the koi carp pond, then headed into the auditorium for the Award ceremony.
We were overwhelmed to receive 3 trophies on the day, including winning the most prestigious category, ‘Most Outstanding Group Award’ for our environmental work! We were all speechless when we headed to the stage for a second time and couldn’t stop grinning throughout! The boys came back to school bursting with inspiration and enthusiasm and full of future plans to change the world. We are looking forward to taking up the main prize next term – a day’s trip to the RSPCA’s ‘Hastings Wild Things’ project at their Mallydams Wood Education Centre. Amongst other activities, the group will help care for injured wildlife and learn about their rehabilitation.
We are incredibly proud of all our Eco Warriors and the hard work and commitment they have shown so far. This day was a celebration of everyone’s work and ideas and we look forward to bringing our next phase of ideas into fruition – watch this space!
For more photos and information about the day please see: https://twitter.com/janegoodalluk
