WILD CHILD
Children in the Wilderness - Botswana

With safari holidays an option for only the wealthiest of tourists, the wildlife spectacles of Africa are denied to the majority of Africans. The Botswana-based Children in the Wilderness is working for more equal access to the great reserves. Every year, the project takes over two luxury safari camps in the Okavango Delta - Wilderness Safari Parks and Ngamiland Adventure Safaris - and opens them up to disadvantaged kids.

The kids often begin their safaris with a negative attitude to wildlife - 'hardly surprising', as Children in the Wilderness points out, 'when their only encounter with wild animals is when crops are raided or destroyed, homes damaged or lives threatened.' The camps are a break from the harsh realities of everyday life in rural Botswana, where poverty and AIDS are rife.

They are also a chance for children to make new friends and to gain an appreciation for the natural world. In some cases the camps have transformed lives: several children have been inspired to become conservationists and safari guides as a direct result of their experience in the Delta. To nurture such ambitions, and to build on the positive impact of the camps, project personnel pay regular follow-up visits to the kids within their own communities. Since its inception in 2001, the project has treated over 600 children to the experience of a lifetime.

What are they doing now

The Botswana-based Children in the Wilderness project takes over luxury safari camps in the Okavango Delta and opens them up to disadvantaged local kids. When World Challenge visited the project in August 2006, we met 16 children from Mathiba Memorial Primary School in Maun at Kaparota Camp.

Helena Faasen joined Children in the Wilderness as a volunteer and helped to develop its follow-up programme. She became a permanent member of the team in 2006. “Objectives are still being realized,” says Helena. “We get good support from our core donors and individual donors that keeps us moving and implementing new ideas.”

The follow-up programme is now over four years old, and its success has led to a number of new challenges. As the project expands it is beginning to struggle to find enough transportation to cover all of its areas and this can lead to less time with the children and fewer camps.

But the outlook remains positive – Helena says that the donors are open to their fundraising efforts. “BBC and Newsweek coverage benefited us a lot,” she continues, “especially for overseas as some of our individual donors heard about Children in the Wilderness through the media”.

For more info see http://www.childreninthewilderness.com/
Pictures: http://www.childreninthewilderness.com/bots_gal_2/index.html