Providing Outreach to Local Communities

Most of us are still suffering from the pandemic, which hit all of us without exception. We thought we would have to close our doors within 3 months because we did not think that everybody would suddenly start to care so much for each other.

Since last year March 20 we couldn’t welcome our local children for their environmental week of education anymore, or any international volunteers. However we still had to feed the animals, maintain employment, camp, program and all the things that give us a purpose in our lives: Educate and motivate South African local children to protect the environment!

A great success of our program is that last year there was a 450% increase in the awareness of the importance of the Ecotourism industry. This means that most of our local children did not know they could directly benefit from protecting their environment and get employment opportunities in the future! The best of it is that the more children we welcome, the more WE will all benefit.

YOU have helped us tremendously, through GlobalGiving, to be resilient. YOU have shown us your trust and support for a better world and we are happy to inform you that next week the 22nd of February, we will start operating and will welcome 6 children for the week. So far we welcomed 52 children from Maahlamele High School, with 42 for Environmental Education, and we also managed to organize a Game Drive for our winners (The students of the week) . It happened on the 09th May 2021.

On the 25th Of May 2021 our Wildlife crime campaigns started where we visited the grade 7 kids to teach them about the negative impact of wildlife crime towards our country and our animals. 3 Primary schools have been visited namly Sekoko, Diphuthi and Maatla.

Thanks to “YES 4 YOUTH” who have placed a number of youth who partake in work experience and learning. One of them is helping with teaching Environmental Education. This started on 04th May and will be for a 12 month period.

The Little x Little GlobalGiving campaign which happened from 8th to the 12th of March. All donations were matched at 50% (up to $50) and we managed to raise $1,026 which helped us to start welcoming students for Environmental Education.

Do you know you can also help us to welcome more children by volunteering with us? Consider enriching your life with a wonderful experience of sharing your knowledge with children, while discovering all our cute animals, all of that in the middle of nature. Check your travel permission obviously before travelling but know that South Africa is pretty up to date with health protocols! We breeze everyday through Mother Nature, so think about it!

I sincerely hope you are all healthy on your side and as positive as we all are here at DAKTARI.

Lots of love from DAKTARI and South Africa.

Links:

• See our activity on Facebook.