GO TO VICTORIA FALLS, PULLING OUT THE STOPS FOR CONSERVATION

With the future of our precious wilderness in the hands of the children, Shearwater Victoria Falls and the Victoria Falls Private Game Reserve have created a program called “Wisdom 4 Wildlife” where children are taught about the sustainable use of wildlife in tourism and its contribution to the economic well-being of the people, ecology and wildlife of Zimbabwe.

Gotovictoriafalls.com, a marketing campaign which was launched specifically to highlight the wonderful products on offer in the area, acts as a support for initiatives such as ‘Wisdom 4 Wildlife’.

“The Project was borne out of the realization that the rural youth of the Victoria Falls community have has small amounts of exposure to wildlife in the area, and with little or no understanding there is hardly any respect for the value that wildlife can add to the area,” says Nicola Simpson of Shearwater.

‘Wisdom 4 Life’ gives pupils from schools in and around Victoria Falls (average age 13 years) the opportunity to be involved in an educational one-day programme in the Victoria Falls Private Game Reserve. Shearwater and the safari guides from the reserve, in conjunction with Rani Resorts started the programme in November 2006, and have rolled out a number of educational interventions to date.

The programme includes:

• Interaction with elephants, lion and black rhino
• Interactive team exercises where the group has to source various flora and fauna in the area, collect and identify them. They are taught the medicinal value of plants and various tree bark and leaves for everyday life
• Identification of spoor and tracking and tracking of animals on foot
• A quiz to understand the levels of learning and insight into wildlife
• A story writing task in which the child relates their experience and writes about what they can give back to their own communities, with respect to learning and understanding the value that the animals can add to their own futures.

“We believe that this educational programme allows the youth an understanding of the importance of minimal destruction to the environment. We have had amazing results to date and foresee many more positive outcomes in the future. After all, armed with this vital information, these children may well go on to become Victoria Falls’ future conservationists, game scouts, guides or environmentalists,” concludes Nicola.