Learning and Volunteering

If you have ever volunteered before, be it with a local animal shelter, a care home, your church, or even in a foreign country; you will understand the impact that volunteering can make. Being a volunteer isn’t just about helping out in the community or giving back, it’s also about personal growth and development.St Bernardos Childrens home is a  home to approximately 100
children who have either been orphaned, abandoned or destitute.

KCH consists of a large nursery
and six individual houses, each one home to 10 – 13 children and their House Mother. The House Mothers are supported by Aunties, who step in and assume full duties when the House Mothers
take time off. The babies are looked after in the nursery, either until they are adopted, or are old enough to enter one of the houses (c. 18 months old). The older children (aged 14 and over) attend boarding school during term-time but return to KCH for the holidays, whilst the younger children remain at the Home and attend Jonathan Gloag Academy. JGA is the school located on
the compound which is run in conjunction with the Home and is open to children from local Kenyan families as well as those who attend KCH.Weekly schedule and activities: You will be given a programme for the week detailing what activities you are expected to participate in and when. Please be aware that plans change at short
notice depending on the needs of the business. Volunteers at KCH can expect to enjoy many
different, daily activities, each new day is different from the last. Week days include caring, feeding and playing with the babies and toddlers in the nursery, helping in the kitchens and bakery, planning fun activities for the Saturday Clubs and Connect Group, haperoning children to swimming lessons, going on day trips (especially during the holidays), helping with homework,
house checks and attending Fellowship with the children on Friday evenings. Lunch is provided at KCH during your shifts

Even in one of the world’s best-known national parks, elephants are in peril. The Mara Elephant Project (MEP) is a two-pronged project, which aims to better understand and protect the elephants of the Mara- Serengeti ecosystem. The research arm of the project is working to determine elephant corridors and movement patterns, particularly those that cross borders into the Serengeti. The other arm of the project, the Quick Response Unit, is ran by the Mara Conservancy and Seiya and is on the front line of the anti-poaching war in the Mara. The project also aims to alleviate Human Elephant Conflicts, HEC, by tracking problem elephants’ movements and deploying Quick Response Teams (QRTs) to intervene during conflicts. The ultimate goal is to protect the elephants of the Mara using tracking technology that will guide long-term plans to secure elephant areas into perpetuity.

when brining in enought Funds, it is possible to assist wildlife vets, conservationists and rangers by collaring and monitoring Mara Elephants

                       The Central Kalahari Game Reserve is Botswana’s biggest reserve and is situated in the middle of the Kalahari Desert. This is pure, untrammeled wilderness. The inhospitable desert habitat doesn’t support the wide variety of safari animals found in greener destinations – but sightings in this arid landscape are special. Thelandscapes with its endless horizons – as the sun gets low in the sky and afternoon colors soften – are mesmerizing, it is a mix of straggly bushes, including the desert-adapted silver terminalia, patches of acacias, pans and fossil riverways interspersed with dunes. In the Wet season, the inter-dune valleys transform to green. For prime wildlife viewing and fewer crowds, you should avoid the driest times of year and visit in the Wet season (November to March). Besides the low-season prices, this is also when animals make the most of the returning rain by gathering around the pans in Deception Valley.

Linyanti is situated north of Savuti in a corner of the Chobe National Park. The Linyanti Swamp is one of the most attractive areas in the park. It boasts a great diversity of game and a restful atmosphere. The north-western corner of Chobe meets the Linyanti River – this is a fragment of almost 900 square kilometres of the secluded Linyanti Swamp. This area is further expanded by the Selinda Reserve in the west and Namibia’s remote Mamili National Park on the northern bank of the Kwando River. The area’s relative remoteness makes it a favoured safari destination. The Linyanti River is in a way similar to the Okavango Delta with its papyrus-lined waterways, extensive reed banks and towering riverine forest. The river forms a swamp area, reminiscent of the one found in the  Wildlife viewing in the Linyati region is excellent. It boasts large concentrations of elephant, lion, sable, roan, hippos, and wild dog, building to a peak in the dry winter months. The area also offers spectacular birding year round and is best known for its enormous herds of Elephant which move down to the Linyanti River at the start of the winter months and only move back inland once the main rains arrive.

The Makgadikgadi Pans Game Reserve, a salt pan– with an area of 3 900 sq. kms is situated in the middle of the dry savanna of north-eastern Botswana. It is one of the largest salt flats in the world. The pan is all that remains of the formerly enormous Lake Makgadikgadi. Here you’ll find open grasslands, shimmering pans, groves of palm trees, and lush riverine forest along the Boteti River. Vast herds of wildebeest and zebra migrate from the grasslands in the east to Boteti River as the pans dry up. Other game species to be seen here are elephant, white rhino, giraffe, gemsbok, kudu, springbok and impala. Predators are lion, cheetah, brown hyena and jackal. Jacks Camp, Meno a Kwena, Camp Kalahari, Planet Baobab are all in the Makgadikgadi.