PETALING JAYA, 15 July 2023 – 16 teachers from 5 secondary schools around Klang Valley rolled up their sleeves at Sungai Penchala in Lembah Bukit Kiara, TTDI today in a mission to equip themselves with the skills and knowledge necessary to become facilitators in river conservation education, during the Salcon Training of Trainers Programme (TOT).
The TOT programme, which is conducted for the eighth-year running since 2013, is an extension of the award-winning Salcon Smart Water Programme (SSWP) organized in the collaboration with non-governmental organization, Water Watch Penang (WWP).
The TOT module is designed for teachers to be able to conduct their own smart water programme with their students, thus enabling more students to benefit and gain knowledge on water conservation. To date, the TOT programme has reached out to approximately 200 teachers and benefited more than 1,500 students through their own river programme.
The programme which is guided by facilitators from Water Watch Penang and Universiti Sains Malaysia, covers a wide range of topics, including hands-on physical, chemical and biological river water testing such as observation on river appearance to determine the water flow rate, identifying the water pH level, dissolved oxygen, turbidity and gathering the sample of aquatic organism in river for observation.
“We are looking forward to share our knowledge today with our students back at school. The module and approach were interesting and different from what we have at school right now. I do think my students will have lots of joy participating in this programme in the future” said Pn. Nooraini, teacher of SMK(P) Taman Petaling.
As encouragement for teachers to conduct their own river programme for their students, Salcon will lend all the testing and monitoring kits as needed. In addition to that, Salcon will sponsor the testing and monitoring kits for free to schools which conduct 4 programmes and above per year.
“Salcon is thrilled to be able to conduct this high demand training for teachers. We understand that some schools might have some limitation to join our planned SSWP throughout the year. Thus, with this training we will ensure teachers are equipped with adequate knowledge, skills and teaching materials so they can conduct their own river conservation programme at their own schedule”, said Ms Chern Meng Gaik – Corporate General Manager of Salcon Berhad.
Present on the day, the President of WWP, Prof. Dr. Chan Ngai Weng, shared his water conservation knowledge with the participants and encouraged them to spread the knowledge and teach our next generation on importance of river conservation and healthy river ecosystem.
The Salcon Smart Water Programme started in 2010 and has benefited more than 3,200 students thus far. It has received two prestigious regional recognitions which are Asia-Pacific Enterprises Leadership Awards - Educational Service Award and Asia Responsible Entrepreneurship Awards 2013 Southeast Asia - Green Leadership Award. Early this year, Salcon received Gold award under Relations with Local Communities category in The Star ESG Positive Impact Awards for Salcon Smart Water Programme.