DAKTARI is a registered non-profit company located in South Africa close to the Kruger National Park. The program site is situated in a 600 hectares private game reserve. Our mission is to educate and inspire local children to value their environment and stimulate community development.
About the Program
The program is based in the middle of the bush. There is no electricity in the camp but we have solar power and Internet for computers. You will live in a family atmosphere and a beautiful area. You must be able to adapt to group life and to be away from the city.
Every Monday DAKTARI welcomes a new group of 8 local under-privileged children for a week and gives them the opportunity to discover, learn and become passionate about wildlife, conservation and their environmental heritage. The organization also supplements their school curriculum in English, math’s, sciences, geography, life skills and social issues.
The goal is to enable today’s local underprivileged children to eventually be able to secure good employment in nature reserves, thereby improving their future and quality of life.
Some of the children who attended to DAKTARI have created Eco Clubs in the villages where they come from. This gave us the idea to start a new program called the Outreach Program.
These two clubs are run once a week at the local high school where environmental and life skill lessons are taught to the students. The students can join voluntary and are of all ages. The lessons are after school from 2.30 until 4.00. The main reason to have these clubs is to give the students who have been to DAKTARI a chance to continue learning about the environment and keep developing themselves as independent people.
We have two eco-clubs at the moment, Rakgolokwane on Monday afternoon and Maahlamele on Tuesday afternoon. The rest of the week is used for community development, business creation, administration, social media, fundraising and preparing the lesson for next week.
The outreach manager is also visiting two crèches in the village of the Oaks (near Maahlamele school) on Tuesday mornings. We alternate every second week with the two crèches.
The idea is to let the program grow, not by taking on more eco-clubs but to improve the lives of the students by finding opportunities for their future. For example by assisting with bursaries to study or get employed in the Eco-Tourism field and/or to help the community toward development in green environment and/or eco-tourism access. This takes up a lot of time but the reward to guide students and/or the community is amazing.
Volunteers will be interacting with:
- Directors
- Long-term volunteers
- Short-term volunteers
- Children
- Students
- Community members
Purpose
Volunteers should manage the
outreach programs including the twice-weekly Eco-Clubs, planning, teaching
lessons and daily administration tasks, providing career guidance to students, organizing bookings for the home-stay families and
supporting business creation in the local area.
Task 1: The Eco-Club
- Plan,
prepare and teach lessons to students at two local schools twice a week,
educating them about environmental issues and nature conservation.
- Preparing
fresh activities to reinforce the lessons.
- Administrative
tasks including keeping attendance records and fundraising.
- Budgeting
tasks, recording all donations, in- and out-going costs including transport,
printing and stationary supply costs.
Task 2: Outreach Campaining
- Plan, prepare and teach the introductory lessons to primary school students to widen our impact.
- Invite and organise presentation days with parents.
- Administrative tasks including keeping attendance records and fundraising>
Task 3: Community Programs – Home-Stay Family
- Continue
to manage the Home-stay family program.
- Organize
and arrange bookings for volunteers to stay with the family (Maakosha Shai).
- Maintain
regular contact with the host families, to nurture the existing relationship we
have with them.
- Ensure
all guests complete charter and feedback forms for future improvements. Offer
guidance and inform the host families of any necessary improvements.
- Search
for and screen potential new families for the program. Conduct interviews with
them and view their home to assess whether they are right for the program.
- Stay
one night with the family to experience a day in their life so that you are
able to provide other potential guests with all the required information.
Task 4: Community Programs (waste management – Eco
Business Creation)
- Work
with the community and local leaders to develop a sustainable waste management
- Connect
with the community to select people who have great ideas and help them to
create their own business.
- Create
enthusiasm toward the development of our neighboring village into an Eco
Friendly Touristic Village.
- Meeting
with the chief of the village to negotiate, present and inform him and the
council about the progress and development plans
Task 5: PR
- Write
and submit press releases to local newspapers covering new programs,
achievements and events.
Task 6: Multimedia
- Take
photographs of new programs, the eco-club, and student achievements.
- Collect
photographs from volunteers who visit the eco-club with you or who experience
the home-stay program, select the best ones to use for the Facebook page and
newspaper articles.
- Manage
all photography with iPhoto and export the selected pictures into the PHOTOS
folder.
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