A primary school in Zimbabwe’s Matabeleland South Province has been named as one of three winners of the 2017 UNESCO-Japan Prize on Education for Sustainable Development. The Sihlengeni Primary School, the social enterprise Zikra for Popular Learning from the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the NGO Hard Rain Project from the United Kingdom are the winners. Each of them received an award of US$50 000 at a ceremony Friday night as part of UNESCO’s 39th General Conference underway at its headquarters in the French capital, Paris. The Sihlengeni Primary School has 17 teachers and 738 learners whose parents are mostly subsistence farmers with low incomes. The school received the prize for its Permaculture programme which provides quality education, increased access to a clean environment, food and water. The school teaches both teachers and learners how to manage land and use it profitably at home while learners are also taught to grow and care for the environment. Permaculture is a form of agriculture which integrates human activity with natural surroundings to create self-sustaining ecosystems. Funded by the Japanese government, the Prize was established in 2014. Outgoing UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova and Japan’s Minister for Education Science and Technology Yoshima Hayashi handed over the prizes.