This scholastic year’s Dinja Wahda, BirdLife and Bank of Valletta’s environmental education project for schools, was this morning launched at Inspire in Marsascala with a prize giving ceremony for the 90 schools which participated in Dinja Wahda last year. This year’s Dinja Wahda programme features a new Action Guide for teachers with a set of new activities for schoolchildren.

The event also marks the renewed support that Bank of Valletta is offering Birdlife Malta. This partnership, which is being made for another scholastic year, consolidates BOV’s involvement in educational and environment initiatives.

Attending schoolchildren opened the event by giving face masks the final touches before putting them on. The masks portray creatures the children will learn about as part of Dinja Wahda.

“It is heartening to see Dinja Wahda grow from 30 participating schools 15 years ago to the 90 schools that received awards today.” said Desiree Falzon, BirdLife Malta’s Education Coordinator.

“In an age where countries are committing to greener lifestyles, Dinja Wahda is BirdLife’s commitment to creating generations that know how to live such lifestyles.”

Mr. Raymond Camilleri, Director Curriculum Management and eLearning, addressed the attending schools, stressing the importance of Dinja Wahda as a tool through which a better harmony with the environment could be achieved through education. Mr Camilleri opened the prize giving ceremony where all the schools from last year’s programme were given trophies based on their participation.

Mr. Karl Spiteri, Manager Marketing at Bank of Valletta reaffirmed the Bank’s support to Dinja Wahda and wished Birdlife Malta success on the implementation of the new programme. “Bank of Valletta is proud to collaborate once again with Birdlife Malta in its education programme. Birdlife makes excellent use of its programme to reach an impressive number of young individuals. The growing enthusiasm demonstrated by schoolchildren year after year reaffirms the positive values that such a programme instills, helping children embrace environmental issues through entertaining and educational initiatives”, said Mr. Spiteri.

Teachers participating in the Dinja Wahda programme choose activities for their class from an action guide of 30 activities. There are 6 new activities and a wealth of new ideas in this year’s action guide, through which children will learn about habitat and biodiversity on the Maltese islands as well as other important environmental issues. Each activity carries points for which schools are awarded Merit, Bronze, Silver or Gold trophies, depending on the number of points earned.

A prize giving ceremony will be held in Gozo tomorrow where Minister for Gozo, Giovanna Debono will be giving prizes to representatives of Gozitan schools which participated in last year’s scholastic programme.

Dinja Wahda is Bank of Valletta’s and BirdLife Malta’s environmental education program for primary schools, carried out in collaboration with the Directorate for Quality Standards in Education.