This scholastic year’s Dinja Wahda, BirdLife and Bank of Valletta’s environmental education project for schools, was launched yesterday at Inspire in Marsascala with a prize giving ceremony for the 90 schools which took part in Dinja Wahda last year. This year’s 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 maintained for another scholastic year, consolidates BOV’s involvement in educational and environmental 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.

Teachers participating in the Dinja Wahda programme choose activities for their class from an action guide of 30 activities. There are six 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 today in Gozo where the 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 programme for primary schools, carried out in collaboration with the Directorate for Quality Standards in Education.