Wildlife Clubs
In January 2014, we set up Wildlife Clubs in five schools around the Mara, in partnership with the Wildlife Clubs of Kenya (WCK). Supported through WCK’s mission to provide conservation education to youths and support wildlife clubs through training, information sharing and advocacy, our Wildlife Clubs are based on the understanding that exposing children to wildlife in an engaging and compelling way will create positive long-term perceptions towards wildlife.
Over the past ten years we have seen our Wildlife Clubs go from strength to strength, adding schools to our initial pool and seeing many members becoming increasingly engaged in wildlife-related issues around the Mara. We currently have 18 primary and two secondary schools.
Following training from WCK officials, our team works with the patrons of each Wildlife Club to formulate an action plan for each school. These plans have helped guide engaging and informative activities, increasing the youngsters’ knowledge about conservation challenges and encouraging them to think about ways to solve these challenges in their schools and communities. Since 2014, we have developed a full curriculum of activities and Michael and Dominic from our team visit each school regularly to engage the pupils in activities.
Through our Wildlife Clubs, we aim to create and motivate young conservationists to better understand conservation issues and to develop a passion for addressing them.
Some of the activities of our Wildlife Clubs include:
- Wildlife Club meetings
- Clean-ups
- Conservation talks
- Debates and discussions
- Game drives
- Exposure visits to Mara Discovery Centre
- Screenings and discussions of wildlife films and documentaries
Our in-house book series, ‘Ole Peenko,’ features stories that revolve around issues of coexistence with wildlife. It covers wildlife social interactions and sought to bring out empathy towards wildlife conservation from the readers. Interactive activities are included to break monotony and peak interest of the readers.
The Wildlife Clubs’ Bulletin is a new exciting publication that focuses on the activities and experiences of our wildlife club members.
Find out what our wildlife club members have been up to in Issue I, Issue II, and Issue III.
