By Manuel Camino | Marketing Manager
Hello all!
We have a lot of news coming from the last few months! As with most projects, it has been a very intense past few months! The challenges we face day in and day out are sometimes outside of our control, but the satisfaction which rises from the positives makes it easy to overcome all the struggles. You, through your donations, have made it possible for us to overcome these difficulties and provide the educational program for the children!
In August we took the children who had been declared the ‘winners of the week’ for the previous 10 weeks on a game drive in Makalali Game Reserve. As it is home to the Big Five, the children were able to spot many of the animals they learned about at DAKTARI and see them in their natural habitat. It is at times like these, where we see the children a few weeks after their stay at DAKTARI, that we are able to really appreciate to what extent their experience with us has made an impact. A lot of the children see volunteers again and are proud to tell them that they have started doing better at school, or that they are now recycling more at home. More importantly, their fascination with and respect towards wildlife is palpable at the game drive. It is incredible to see how they are blown away by something which they have lived next to for a long time but were never aware was there!
In contrast to the success that was the Winner’s game drive; over the last few weeks we have had to face the challenge of strikes and riots in the neighbouring communities surrounding DAKTARI. In addition to blocked roads and burned cars, these have made it dangerous to drive into the villages, something which we avoided for the sake of the children as well as our volunteers. As a result, most of the schools have also been closed, making it very difficult to organize the logistics to welcome children. However, the DAKTARI Project never stops! We are very proud to say that, even though it was difficult, we never stopped welcoming children throughout the strikes! We believe that difficulties such as these should not stand in the way of offering the educational program to as many children as we can reach. We arranged to take in children from schools that were in less conflictive areas, even though the schools were all closed.
Again, a heartfelt thank you for supporting DAKTARI! Your donations make it possible for us to go out and work with the children every day. You motivate us to keep going and overcome times of difficulty! Moreover, you make a difference by allowing us to take that step further and motivate the children by being able to offer the game drive as a special prize for their efforts during the week!
From everyone at DAKTARI, as well as the children, we are tremendously thankful!
Best Regards, and until next time!
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