Resource 5: Mary Ojerinde

 Teacher resource for planning or adapting to use with pupils

In Nigeria, Mary Ojerinde, the daughter of a pastoral farmer who studied agriculture, noticed the impact of overgrazing in her village and the adjoining villages and had made up her mind to do something about it in her adult life. This life ambition of hers made her form a group, The Green Revolution Movement.

The aim of the group is to protect the environment from desert encroachment in the northern part of Nigeria. The group, consisting of many professionals, community leaders and local farmers interested in protecting the environment, encouraged the planting of trees and creation of grazing land for the Fulani herdsmen in specific areas in the villages. The group also held regular counselling sessions with the farmers on land use management and other environmentally friendly methods of rearing animals with increased productivity.

This made Mary Ojerinde a heroine among her colleagues in the Institute of Agricultural Research, where she works, and in the surrounding villages.

In order to promote positive attitudes towards environmental protection, the group visited a number of schools and encouraged them to set up Environmental Protection Clubs that focus on why it is important to look after the land and how to look after the land better. The activities to engage in, as suggested by Mary Ojerinde, include cleaning the school environment of litter and waste, creating drainage and cleaning blocked drainage in nearby villages, and planting flowers and trees, particularly fruit-bearing ones like mangoes, guavas and oranges, in particular places on the school compound. The movement engages in awareness campaigns on the dangers of overgrazing and illegal felling of trees. All these activities were built into a work plan on a large poster with datelines that could be displayed on the class walls.

The local government learned about the activities of the group and the chairman had decided to fund all the educational aspects of the group’s campaign. Mary Ojerinde had also been requested to launch the group in other parts of the State.