About five hours of navigation on the Ogooué River, from Port-Gentil, the village Okoumi Kassa, in Lake Avanga, organized, Friday, June 9, the end of year party of its public primary school.

The festive meeting was also a moment of discussion on the future projects proposed by the association Les Enfants du Lac Avanga, in particular the continuation of the supply of the school with school supplies and medical equipment, food for the boarding school, or in mosquito nets. The re-schooling of children who have left the education system remains one of the major objectives of the association. It will also be about the creation of a library, a hundred books are already available, and a sports field.

Philippe Corlobé, president of the association, announced an innovative project for the start of the next school year, the monitoring of biodiversity by schoolchildren, supervised by the teaching staff and the inhabitants of the village. Surveillance that will be carried out according to three protocols designed by a team of scientists.

The first will consist in monitoring the evolution of the soil by counting earthworms in defined areas. For the second, it will be a question of monitoring the growth of several types of trees by regularly measuring their diameters. The third will focus on the quantitative monitoring of several families of insects. The provision of a small weather station whose daily values will be recorded by the schoolchildren will complete these protocols.

The objective is to make children aware of the richness of their environment and to create vocations. The project will thus help in the environmental education of children who will be able to preserve their environment, the forest of the Congo-Ogooué basin.

Faithful AFANOU EDEMBE

Port Gentil / Gabon