“Nature is the mother that feeds us” (Mike Horn) because of that we should not destroy nature and protect it. This is the message that we want to transmit to the 20 kids of our EcoCamp here at the Shamwari Game Reserve.
Sadly there is a lot of poaching in South Africa, every day poachers kill Rhinos only for the horn, Lions for their bones, Elephants for their tusks and many other animals for either their skin, horn or meat. It is very important that everyone becomes aware of this situation and so can hopefully stop it. This morning the kids got some lessons about poaching and after that they had to find some signs of poaching in the nature. They all seemed to be very interested and the message anti-poaching definitely came across.
To get the kids closer to nature they had to prepare some presentations about different animals and then had to present their animal during a Game Drive in front of everyone. We could see that some were really passionate to present their animal. At the end we had presentations about lions, zebras, elephants, hippos and other animals.
After two and a half days we can see that the EcoCamp is a full success and that the kids start to understand how important it is to protect nature.
This morning we learned a lot about poaching and then had to look for traps and poaching signs on our own. It was very difficult because they were hidden under bushes but we found all of them so they will not hurt the animals anymore. We then left for a game drive, but this time we were the rangers. We learnt about different animals in advance like Zebra and Elephant and then presented it to the other groups, pretending we were the rangers. It was fun, I learned a lot about all the African wild animals and am very proud of my group. Today we had lunch in the bush. It is lots of fun being out in nature!
We moved on and suddenly a lion, the king of the jungle was just in front of our car! I now know how dangerous they are but also how important it is to protect them. Later we made paper out of elephant dung which was fun as well. I didn´t know that is possible! My first self made paper!
When we got back we had to do an interview. We were very shy in the beginning but it went very well and now I´m proud of myself!
My Sunday was very nice, I enjoyed the animals and I learn more every day. Here I´ve learned more about animals and the environment than in my past school years! It is fun being in nature, I´m so glad I got the opportunity to come here and am very happy to be here, but I am also looking forward to tell all my friends about the wonderful experiences I had in Shamwari. When I see the animals on TV next time I will proudly think to myself: “Wow, I´ve seen you in real life!” But mainly I have learned to respect my friends and nature and to keep it clean. I won´t drop my trash in nature anymore because I want to keep it clean. I really love Mother Nature!
It was my birthday today. What a special day, the first time I celebrated it in nature. I feel very good and gosh, I even got a nice cake!
written by Theresa Kaiser and Livio Knöri