Kenya: Connecting with the local community

Wildlife almost always exists in a human context. We can do all the monitoring we want – without having the local community on board, it would mean nothing. This is why this expedition includes an ‘educational day’. This Sunday we hosted twelve students (age 14-17) from the local boarding school in Emarti, the village just outside Enonkishu, for a day. In a planning session on Saturday afternoon, the team created an activities schedule to make the day a learning experience for everyone. After an eye-opening tour around the school providing first-hand insight, the team went out for a game drive in all three cars. Most of the students had never seen the wildlife that lives on their doorstep – not even an impala or Thomson’s gazelle. Not only did they see plenty of those, but also the cheetah family, as well as two female lions with two cubs. For the expedition, this was also the first encounter with them.

Lunch at the expedition base was then followed by a walk around our classroom by Monika and a short presentation created by Michael and Peter T. to introduce our international team of citizen scientists in order to create awareness that people from all over the world come to Enonkishu to support wildlife conservation efforts. Emmanuel, Albert and Musa from Enonkishu then talked about their roles/jobs/tasks in conservation before the students were briefed by Gabi and Nannette on a learning group activity they were asked to present to the group. Peter G. presented pictures of a remotely set up camera trap in the classroom before Brigitte and Sylvie handed over a present to each student. These were mostly notebooks and pens, brought in specifically for this event. Then it was time to go, but not before taking a group picture!