This is the first environmentally friendly room led by the Foundation for Biodiversity Conservation (BIOFUND), inaugurated in the Sussundenga Secondary School, in Manica province, on July 11, 2022, by the Director of the District Education Services, in a ceremony attended by more than 100 people, highlighting local entities, the school community and conservation partners.

This Biodiversity Room was installed by BIOFUND, through the Mozambique Conservation Leadership Program (PLCM), in partnership with Chimanimani National ParkPortucel Moçambique and Vodacom Foundationwith the objective of raising awareness among the children and young people of Sussundenga about the importance of caring for the environment and biodiversity.

The room is composed of panels and photographs on the predominant biodiversity in the province of Manica, with emphasis on endemic plants, fauna, landscapes and historical and tourist points of the Chimanimani National Park, and a computer lab consisting of 20 computers and internet for a period of one year. In addition to the Biodiversity Room, a waste recycling point was set up at this school and a school garden was created that will involve and benefit the school's students.

This initiative is part of the pilot phase of the project to create Conservation Rooms and develop Education Ateliers that BIOFUND and its partners will implement in schools around the themes of Biodiversity, Mineral Resources, Water, Solid Waste Management and Food-Nutrition. This initiative also results from the dream of bringing to classrooms extracts of the local biodiversity content that was originally developed with the support of partners for the annual Biodiversity Exhibitions implemented by BIOFUND in Maputo (2015), Gaza (2016), Quelimane (2017) and Inhambane (2018), with emphasis on the Manica Exhibition in 2019. These materials were supplemented for this biodiversity room by PLCM staff, including several of their trainees.

On behalf of the Administrator of Sussundenga, the District Director of Education, Chico Domingos Manuel Ferrão made clear in his inauguration speech that the installation of the Biodiversity Room in that school represents an important milestone for the District and for the Province of Manica. "For the first time, we inaugurate a biodiversity room. This is a great gain for our district. With these rooms, the children have information to take care of the planet, so that the planet also takes care of us, we will capitalize on this gain, to allow other children to have access to information", he pointed out.

Also, the Director of the Sussundenga Secondary School, Manuel Campira, thanked for the choice of the institution he directs and committed himself to preserve the repository of several environmental education didactics that will contribute to the teaching-learning process and in changing society's behavior about the environment.

For BIOFUND, the inauguration of the Biodiversity Room in Sussundenga, coincides with the passing of the tenth anniversary of the foundation, celebrated in a campaign under the slogan "let's do more" for biodiversity. This new biodiversity room is the first result of this celebration. "We are convinced that with the efforts and creativity of all our partners we will take this project forward and there will be many more conservation rooms like this one, and we will do more for biodiversity, in many ways," said Alexandra Jorge, BIOFUND's Program Director.

In addition to the Chimanimani National Park and Portucel Mozambique who were responsible for the rehabilitation of the rooms, and who will continue to support the school with the implementation of environmental education activities and the Vodacom Foundation who set up the computer lab, the creation of the Biodiversity Room of Sussundenga, had the collaboration of young people from the Gonazololo Association who produced various products with recycled material, the Portuguese School of Mozambique who has contributed books on biodiversity to the school library and the National Administration of Conservation Areas (ANAC), which has contributed environmental education manuals.