Pandora Long is an Education, Training and Development Practitioner that assists DUCT as an Independent Consultant. In this role, Pandora leads the Pietermaritzburg Education Unit providing quality assurance and mentorship, including programme design.  Pandora also undertakes project management and implementation.

Pandora is an environmental activist and has supported local community conservation initiatives in the Mpushini Valley outside Pietermaritzburg, assisting her community in establishing the first community Protected Environment in Kwazulu-Natal in 2011.  Pandora forms part of the DUCT “Mayday for Rivers” Team having walked the uMgeni River Source to Sea in 2012 and has since then joined Team Leader, Penny Rees, on several subsequent river walks.  Pandora’s most passionate life goal is to restore the ecological flow to the Mpushini River. Pandora advocates a Frack Free South Africa. 

Pandora is a qualified Education, Training and Development Practitioner and holds a Bachelor of Education from the School of Education and Development at UKZN.

Pandora is no stranger to education, having spent 30 years as a natural science, art and music teacher and an environmental educator, where she is passionate about providing opportunities for early childhood engagement with nature through approaches that integrate environmental learning with arts, culture and heritage.  Pandora has a strong vision for youth development linked to community conservation and rehabilitation projects and livelihood generation.  She works closely with many schools in the Pietermaritzburg area.

Pandora has more than 30 years of work experience in the field of environmental education, training and development.

In conjunction to working with DUCT, Pandora coordinated the WESSA Eco-Schools Pietermaritzburg Cluster between 2010 and 2015. She initiated the Happy Earth Forum, an association of environmental educators in 2013 and is chairperson of her local community organization, the Preservation of the Mkondeni Mpushini Biodiversity Trust.

Over the years before joining DUCT in 2007, Pandora taught at a local alternative high school, taught music at The Music Workshop at GHS and managed several small projects at Galago Farm, including a small floriculture project and two education and training projects for the Lower Mpushini Valley Conservancy, Bushbabies Environmental Education Project and Mpushini Eco-Education Initiative.  Between her work for DUCT Pandora still finds time to pursue of these interests.

Pandora has four children, is widowed, and is working towards a dream of establishing an Environmental Centre at Galago with a Children’s Garden Project alongside the Mpushini River at the confluence with the Msunduzi River that will act as a DUCT “Green Hub”.