Encourage children to care for the Environment

Dear Friends of Daktari,

We would like to thank you all for helping Daktari towards the purchase of the Toyota Quantum to safely transport the children. 

Every Monday, the mini bus is driving to the village to collect 8 to 10 children coming to Daktari for a week of education. This is a trip the children will never forget, as it is, for most of the children, their first interaction with wildlife although they live only 50 kms away. During these two trips coming from their village to Daktari, and back a week later, they often have the opportunity to see cheetahs, lions and even elephants while driving between the two beautiful game reserves of Karongwe and Makalali. What a treat for the children!!! 

It was very difficult to find the funds to purchase the vehicle but thanks to you, we’ve done it!!!  We still have to refund the loan we had to take, and this is taken care of by our regular volunteers. 

We trust you are pleased by your involvement with the education of the children and the protection of the environment and we are very honoured to have you with us on this matter. 

We invite you to read about out two other projects on Global Giving about conservation and we hope you will find them worth your support.

http://www.globalgiving.com/pr/2400/proj2376a.html

http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/conservation-education-underprivileged-children-africa

We wish you a lovely day and hope to hear from you very soon.

Best regards,

Links:

• Daktari's website

Dear Sponsor,

My name is Andrea, I am the new Office Volunteer at Daktari and will be updating you for the next year. Firstly I would like to give you my thanks and gratitude for your support and donations, without them Daktari would not be able to run and could not continue with the wonderful work it does with animals and children (and volunteers!)

So much has happened since May I don’t know where to start! 

Last month the local schools had exams and then school holidays, so for two weeks we had children from grade 7 and then the week after that we took in 10 children from Qoisi Orphanage in Bushbuck Ridge. It is always a real eye opener for the new volunteers when they meet underprivileged children, Daktari doesn’t just change the lives of the children, but of the volunteers as well. Seeing the children so happy with the little that they have makes us realise just what we take for granted, and makes us proud that we, and you, have taken the time and effort to help them.

The biggest change since May is that we now have a new dormitory for the children, sponsored by our donors from Germany. The volunteers all helped with the building and decorating to make it extra special. 

Our two baby Warthogs are growing up fast, they seem to think that they are dogs and spend a lot of time in Bullet’s basket! They are starting to spend more time outside of the camp now, hopefully they will soon spend most of their time out in the wild and only come back to us for visits. We’ll be sad to see them go, but will be happy that they are free, as nature intended. 

We have entered 3 photos into the Global Giving Photo Competition for August. I will keep you all updated on how it goes!!

Thanking you again for your continued support, 

 All the staff & animals at Daktari 

Links:

• Daktari website

Dear Friends of Daktari, 

You haven’t heard from us for quite a while. It is because we have been very busy the last 3 months and every single minute was worth it for working hard on Daktari’s goals. 

First we had the GlobalGiving Bonus Days Campaign. Thanks to you, Daktari has been able to raise R 7,050.00. This amount helps us to cover the education/accommodation/food of 10 underprivileged children for a whole week at Daktari. What a great help of yours! 

In the past we honored the child with the best results of the week with a little tree that was to be planted in the school. Now we decided to take in addition every two months the 10 best students to Kruger National Park for further wildlife- and job opportunity-experience, and certainly also for a treat. The Kruger Park management enabled us to bring our ten best students every two months, free of charge, to the park. Daktari did the first excursion with the children coming from Leoma School. The volunteers sponsored the petrol of the car to make it possible. It was a real success!! But we certainly cannot always ask the volunteers to pay for the petrol and the usage of the car. That is the reason why we invented a new donation-button of the GlobalGiving page. Your usual support is also very much welcome for this project. 

In Mai we had our Recurring Donation Campaign with GlobalGiving. We managed to get 14 donors motivated to make a recurring donation for Daktari of a total amount of $ 239. Thank you so much for your support! Succeeding in this challenge will also give us an extra bonus of $500 in about 4 month when the recurring donations will have been honored. 

We have all plans ready for our new project and the button prepared for donations to get started. “Teach 125 Wildlife-Club Kids in rural village”. Basically the plan is to do a follow up and support the wildlife clubs that have been created by the children who previously visited Daktari. The project will employ one person who will go every day of the week to dynamism and assist the 5 wildlife clubs of the village.

The project aims to have a direct influence in schools and villages by extending Daktari’s already existing program. The aims of this program is to educate underprivileged children about the benefits of recycling, reducing pollution and anti-poaching; to provide guidance and tools to apply successfully for Eco-tourism jobs; to enable the schools to obtain the South African Eco-label; to organize trips to wildlife sanctuaries. It’s a great opportunity to encourage this project by making a recurring donation!!! 

Besides all the money-talk… Daktari was cut off for days from civilization in January due to heavy rainfalls. We received two Pied Crows named Elvis and Presley which joined our family and our donkey Freddy lost by an operation his manhood to calm him down in his moods. 

All in all we must say that we had exciting, successful and happy months and look forward to what comes up next. We will keep you posted and thank you so much again for your support. We certainly don’t take all your donations for granted. 

The children and the animals of Daktari send you a big hug!

Links:

• Daktari Website
• Daktari on Facebook
• Daktari on Twitter