We were joined by students aged between 8 and 10 for part of our final performance in Victoria Falls. Here’s the story:

We didn’t know what to expect when we agreed to do a 3 day workshop with students at Victoria Falls Primary school. Our wonderful contact, Chenai, had floated the idea of co-writing a song with the students that was targeted at building environmental awareness. This was timely as Victoria Falls planned to host the RAMSAR Convention on Wetlands Conservation ( COP15 ) during the same week.

What we found was a group of approximately 80 intelligent, enthusiastic, excited and fast learning students and their teacher, Mr Soko who generously gave us the space, time and resources to work with the students.

We’d be lying if I said we knew exactly what we were going to do – but after a quick planning session in the taxi ride the night before- we had a rough outline in place: we would provide the bones of the song but let the students decide which issues they wanted to sing about and help them translate those issues into the lyrics of the song.

We started off by asking 3 simple questions:

1. What do you not like about the environment in Victoria Falls ?

2. What do you like most about the environment in Victoria Falls ?

3. If everything you don’t like about the enviroment could be fixed, what would you like Victoria Falls’ to look like in 5 years ?

The students were then divided into 4 groups, each with the chance to learn different instruments for the song and add a few words to the song.

Here is:

“Life is Better Without Any Litter.”

There’s lots of litter

There’s too much pollution

People are poaching

and cutting down trees

We need more solutions

We want more fresh air

We need less poaching

I will help the world

We need more bins

And put out your fires

I will fight on and save the forest

Life is better, without any litter!

Life is better, without any litter!

Life is better, without any litter!

Life is better, without any litter!