(Seychelles News Agency) - A luxury hotel, JA Enchanted Island Resort on Round Island in Seychelles, has joined the long list of tourism establishments in the country to adopt a school as part of the Lospitalite Tourism Clubs programme.

The programme launched by the tourism department in February last year in what the principal secretary in the department, Sherin Francis, said is a way for the country to adjust the national mind-set to reflect the fact that the small Island state depends on tourism.

Speaking at the launch, Francis explained “there is no better way to achieve that than through a network of tourism clubs where children from a young age are taught the appropriate values to carry us forward”.

Now with over 31 clubs established in various state and private schools, Mont Fleuri School, which is around a 10-minute boat ride to Round Island, has joined the ranks of schools with Lospitalite Tourism Clubs.

“We chose Mont Fleuri, as it is not that far from us,” said the JA Enchanted Island Resort general manager, Burak Aydin, to the press on the day the children were cleaning selected areas on the island.

“We want to instill a sense of respect in them while they are still young and help them to appreciate the value of a clean environment as well as having quiet and serene surroundings,” he added.

Round Island is small island with an area of 0.018 km², found in the Sainte Anne National Marine Park (Seychelles News Agency) Photo license: CC-BY

A total of 13 secondary students from Mont Fleuri arrived on the island on the morning of May 10, to clean litter left behind by people who hold picnics on the island.

“I joined the club as I believe tourism is really important to the country and it is important that we keep the places tourists visit clean,” said Justin Gabriel, who was part of the cleaning team for the day.

While the clean-up exercise was the first JA Enchanted held for the Mont Fleuri School club, Aydin told the press that they have plans to hold more in the future.

Meanwhile, the children were able to collect empty bottles, barbed wire fish traps and others in the litter found on the beaches and on the island itself.

“We will see what we can recycle in what was collected today, such as the tyres that we can reuse to plant in,” said Randy Camille, a JA Enchanted Island Resort employee who was leading a team of children in the clean-up exercise.

He went on to explain that “things that we are unable to recycle, we will gather and send for proper disposal”.