Brighton Chiseva
MASVINGO – Fourth-year Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) students from the Great Zimbabwe University (GZU) and their lecturers last weekend embarked on a clean-up campaign in the Central Business District (CBD) in what they said was an exercise to ensure cleaner surroundings.
The campaign, which was conducted in partnership with City of Masvingo, The Environmental Management Agency (Ema), Great Zimbabwe Realtors (GZR) and other partners, ran under the theme ‘Education for Sustainable Development’.
Professor Shumirai Nyota, a senior lecturer in the faculty who led the students, said it was the desire of the team to help move the country towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that include Sustainable Cities and Communities.
“Unesco believes sustainable development begins with teachers, so we have seen it fit to prepare our students by cleaning the streets. We want them to pass the knowledge to the classes that they too will teach in the future,” said Prof Nyota.
She said the focus was on Unesco’s three Rs; Reuse, Reduce and Recycle, plus Ema’s own addition ‘Rethink’.
“For the mean time, we are concentrating on reducing littering in the environment because we do not have resources to recycle or reuse,” she said.
City of Masvingo mayor Hubert Fidze also took part in the cleaning and said he was pleased by the students’ strong desire for cleaner streets.
“Don’t clean only the CBD where people see you. Let’s do it everywhere in Masvingo including at our campuses and hostels. We need to make Masvingo the cleanliest town in Zimbabwe for it carries the name of this country,” said Fidze.
He went on to urge women to go for breast cancer screening and men to be aware of prostate cancer.
He also urged students to go and register to vote.local
