Whole-school environmental stewardship
Expand experiential nature learning
For most of the learners who come to us, this is a first night spent outside the city. We run curriculum-linked lessons in schools, outings to nature reserves, and overnight camps that put learners in the landscape itself.
Reaching more children, from more angles
“Many learners step onto a trail or a rocky shore for the first time in their lives with us. That first encounter is where understanding begins.”
We want as many children as possible to experience nature, and we keep looking for ways to do it. Bed nights at our facilities and the cost of running camps set the ceiling, so we work at it from several angles at once, pairing overnight camps with activities inside schools.
Our educators deliver curriculum-linked lessons to learners across all grades, from short in-school sessions to outings at the False Bay Nature Reserve and other outdoor spaces. Overnight camps take this further. Trips to the Bokbaai Environmental Education Centre blend outdoor adventure with academic content.
Our target is 3 000 children on overnight camps a year. Cape Town has roughly 100 000 learners in each grade, so camps alone will never reach everyone.
That is why nature learning also goes into schools. Eco-projects at participating schools, backed by classroom lessons and excursions, reached over 6 000 learners in 2025/26. Reaching the rest will take more than one organisation.
Bokbaai Environmental Education Centre
The home of environmental education in the Cape
Few centres in South Africa carry the depth of history that comes with Bokbaai. Restoration of the eighteenth century homestead was completed in 2022, and with municipal permissions in place, camps began running there in earnest the same year.
The site provides two-person tents under star-rich skies, environmentally friendly ablutions, water recycling and renewable electricity, and a well-equipped kitchen and dining area. Its biomes run from sandy and rocky shore ecology through dune and river systems to terrestrial Strandveld, giving curriculum learning a reference point you can walk through. A biodiversity centre with digital microscopes and detailed displays allows a deeper look at the biology and history of the region.
Mapula Trust made this possible by granting use of the facility, opening it to children from low and high income communities alike, along with special needs groups and tertiary institutions. Over the past four years more than 3 500 learners and young conservationists have spent time at Bokbaai.
Bookings open to schools, tertiary groups and special needs groups. The form takes about five minutes.
This year in numbers
Financial year ended 28 February 2026.
From the programme manager
Tammy-Lee Solomons
This year was given to reaching more schools and placing more learners on our overnight camps, despite the loss of a campsite. The team kept programmes aligned and every activity practical, so that learners spent their time in nature itself.
Our overnight camps remain the part of the programme that changes learners most. Several days in has a marked impact on building a learner’s connection to nature. Those experiences are reinforced through follow-up day excursions and school lessons, keeping those connections alive.
Through our various projects we have reached thousands of learners, yet there are many more schools and communities to reach. The successes of this year showed us how much we can achieve, and encourage us to keep doing the work we do.
Priorities for the year ahead
