Are you interested in dance and drama? Did you know we have dance and drama projects? Gina Bishop, a Dance Instructor from LA does! She’s off to South Africa to volunteer in a Street Kids centre. Whilst she’s volunteering there she’s also going to provide some fun and excitement for the kids in the form of contemporary dance classes!

Gina originally wrote to us expressing how she would like to assist with the children in Knysna  “My dream is to Inspire, Enrich, Educate and Spread love through the ARTS. It has never been about quantity, it has always been about quality. I have no doubt that the Arts changes LIVES but my mission has always been to affect one LIFE at a time. I am aware that many of these children live in tragic circumstances, which makes the need for a mentor, role model, and teacher even more crucial. My life has never been simply about teaching dance. It has ALWAYS been about empowering kids to love themselves and inspiring them to love each other.

 The Arts allows the voiceless children of the world the chance to be heard. I am determined to spread a non -violent approach to self -expression and prompt children to live a life of LOVE. In my adult life I have been an advocate for peaceful awareness and personal growth through self- understanding and development. It is through the encouragement of creative expression that children, who were never properly loved, get a chance to Feel. I am certain that if we start paying better attention to the lives of our youth, the world will reap the benefits in so many profound ways. 

We’ve advertised the classes to the local communities and it’s caused quite a stir over in South Africa already and even the local press are eagerly anticipating her arrival! Check out the poster that was created:

Gina is very excited about her project with Travellers and has been fundraising for it for the last few months. Click here to check out her blog to see her fundraising progress. If you’d like to find out more about our projects in South Africa, click HERE and if you’d like to find out more about our dance and drama placements around the world, please click HERE

We are pleased to announce our new marine research internship in South Africa:

Sharks, Whales, Penguins, Seals, Dolphins…this is an extraordinary and exciting project in a beautiful location, surrounded by white beaches and blue ocean. And two hours from the world’s third favourite city – Cape Town. What more could anyone want?

 This is a programme for interns working in the unique marine environment at the tip of Africa – home to one of the densest populations of Great White Sharks in the world. It is the breeding area of the endangered Southern Right Whale and home of one of the threatened colonies of the African Penguin, as well as resident populations of Dolphins, Seals and thousands of Seabirds.

If you’d like to find out more about the project, click HERE

Whilst on her PR Work Experience Internship at our Centre for Rehabilitation of Wildlife in South Africa, Natacha Torres wrote two press releases. Here is the second one she wrote…..

Today, the centre for rehabilitation of wildlife released two of their rescued duikers, Bella and Eddie, back into the wild at Tala, a 3 000 hectare Game Reserve in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal.

 This morning most of the staff and volunteers could be seen in the buck’s enclosure capturing the two duikers, and putting them into two animal carriers and at the back of the bakkie.

 Bella and Eddie both became orphans after both their mothers were killed.  Bella was confiscated from a man who was trying to sell her on the roadside in North Beach, and was admitted to the centre for rehabilitation of wildlife when she was only 3 days old and has been hand reared. Eddie was found at two weeks old in Wartburg after being attacked by a dog; he suffered from a dislocation of the hip bone and was under veterinary treatment for many weeks.  Like Bella he has also been hand reared.

 We drove 68 km to have Bella, now 8 months old, and Eddie, 17 months old, released into a safe environment with over 380 species of bird, game such as rhino, kudu, hippo, giraffe and antelope as well a huge number of indigenous plant species.

The release site was truly stunning, situated next to Tala’s Marula Education Centre, filled with wild long grass, surrounded by trees and a duiker-sized waterhole.  A perfect home for these two displaced animals to come to!

 After all the fuss of not wanting to be in the carrier back at the rehabilitation centre, at Tala they didn’t seem to want to leave it. Eddie was the first to come out, curious to his new surroundings.  Bella hid in the box until Sue-Ann, the centre’s clinical nurse, tapped it.  She shot out at such a speed, showing some of her fantastic jumping skills, and scaring poor Eddie.  From there on they joyfully jumped back into the wild where they belong.

 ”These duiker’s release are a prime example of what our staff at the centre for rehabilitation of wildlife do on a daily basis”, says the centre’s Director, Samantha Terblanche, “it is one of the most rewarding jobs, but also an emotionally difficult one, especially when you have to release the animals you practically raised as your own children”.  Rescue, rehabilitate and then release, from bird to buck, to the fastest of cats and the slowest of tortoise, this is what they strive to do on a daily basis.

If you’d like to find out more about our projects in South Africa, click HERE

Sharon, our Volunteer Liaison in Knysna, South Africa, shares with us the latest exciting news from the volunteer house:

Apart from having very friendly locals in the Knysna area, the Travellers Worldwide volunteers doing their placements in Knysna can also expect visits from a troop of very friendly Vervet monkeys (indigenous to Southern Africa). As soon as you hear the sound of footsteps on the roof you know that the little natural born thieves have arrived and all windows and door have to be shut as their sole objective in life seems to be to break into the Knysna volunteer house’s kitchen which would be like
monkey heaven for them! On a nice sunny day there can easily be as many as 18 monkeys (babies included) surrounding the house and they are the cutest things out, inevitably the volunteers always fall in love with the confident little creature. Recently though one of the mothers had given birth to a little baby and this time it’s more special than ever as it is a little albino and the cutest thing out. What is a little worrying is that there is a possibility that it could at a later stage be rejected by the troop but we shall be observing closely and hoping that we get plenty more visits from it in the future!

If you’d like to find out more about our projects in South Africa, click HERE

Gina Bishop, a volunteer who is going to South Africa in August has been busy fundraising for her worthwhile project. If you’d like to check out her blog with all of her efforts please click the link below:

If you’d like to find out more about our projects in South Africa, click HERE and if you’d like to find out more about how easy it is to fundraise for your project please click HERE

At our Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre in South Africa there is more cause for celebration, here’s the story:

Robbie the baby baboon was brought into the centre at about 8 weeks old. His mother had been killed by hunting dogs and the owners of the dogs had locked Robbie up in a room. The Neighbours of these owners alerted the police, who rescued Robbie and brought him to the Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre. Robbie wasvery emotionally distressed and had some physical trauma too -  a bump on his spine and a very burnt left hand (that the Centre thinks is probably from being given very hot porridge to eat.)

Robbie will need about 4 months of care before he can be introduced to a surrogate baboon mother. Luckily, one of our volunteers, Rebecca, was around to lend a hand – she is volunteering at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre for 9 weeks and has been nominated to mother Robbie for the entire time she is volunteering. It’s a wonderful experience for her but also means that the baboon will receive consistent care, which the Centre is hoping will lead to a quicker recovery and rehabilitation into the wild!

You can see from the photos that the pair have already formed a strong bond:

If you’d like to find out more about our projects in South Africa, click HERE

Natacha Torres has sent us the first Press Release she has written whilst on her PR Work Experience Placement at a Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre in South Africa. Here is what she wrote……

This week the Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre received Clover, a Vervet monkey, who climbed into the back of a delivery cooler truck where she suffered serious injuries from getting hit by a large fan. The fan sliced her head and her face leaving her with serious open wounds from her nose to her lower jaw, eyebrow, tongue and the top of her head, as well as destroying all her bottom teeth and shattering the bones in her left hand.

The driver of the truck explained, whilst offloading on Saturday, a group of Vervet monkeys had jumped into the back of the truck, however he and some men managed to chase all the monkeys out of the truck, or so they thought… It was Monday morning when the driver noticed a destroyed fan and Clover lying on the floor covered in blood, assuming she was dead he bent over to pick her up when she twitched. Clover was rushed to the Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre where she was immediately taken to a vet to be operated on, it was feared that she would not survive due to a lot of blood loss, pain and trauma, but thankfully the operation went extremely well.

She is the newest patient at the Centre and is constantly kept under the watchful eyes of the clinical nurses as well as the rest of the staff, she is currently having to be hand fed due to the extent of her injuries, one arm has a cast and she is unable to chew, so she is fed with a syringe and eats pureed food, but luckily being only 15 months old it was only her baby teeth that got knocked out, so she should grow her adult teeth!

With some more medical treatment and a lot of care, she has a chance of surviving and she will eventually be released back into the wild close to where she was found.

This is one of the many devastating stories found at the Rehabilitation Cenre, but hopefully it will have a happy ending, Mabel Watts, Primate Manager at the Centre explained, “Vervets being the inquisitive, cheeky things that they are often get into accidents, but Clover after only being with us for a couple of days is looking much better and should make a full recovery.”

Mabel Watts also added “I have to enforce, if you ever see an animal lying on the road, do not assume it dead. So many animals could be saved if people just took a moment to go check.”

If you’d like to find out more about our projects in South Africa, click HERE

Deanne Michelle Peterson is a grown-up gapper who took part in three different projects in South Africa, here’s what she had to say:

 I embarked on this journey in revolt to my recently turning 40.  As a business owner, wife and mother of two teenage boys, a month long journey to Africa seemed like something far reaching and beyond my reality.  My vacation experiences prior to this were always family oriented and/or resort style, including  room service, umbrella drinks, amusement parks, cruise ships, and guided tours.  I wanted to see and do as much as I could and experience as much of South Africa as possible but with family and work obligations, time was an issue.  My journey with Travellers Worldwide gave me the opportunity to see a do all of the things a vacationing tourist would do, while the volunteering gave me the chance to meet many local people, and get to know so more about the culture and the people of SA.  I was able to see and do more than I ever imagined possible in one month.

From my very first inquiring email to Travellers all my questions and concerns were answered with the efficiency and accuracy of a world-class travel agency.  I was put in touch with people who worked on the projects I was interested in and other volunteers as well.

My accommodations and work experiences were exactly as described and better than I’d expected, the project managers went above and beyond to ensure the volunteers had everything needed and wanted.  Many of my traveling companions were recent high school graduates, as a mother, I couldn’t have imagined sending my 18 year old son on a trip like this before seeing it for myself.  Now without a doubt I will be planning a volunteer experience with Travellers for both of my sons after their graduations.  All in all this was the most wonderful, fulfilling, and incredible, month of my life! Before this journey, like many people my age, I was stuck in my regular every day rut of work and routine.  But after a month of diving with great white sharks, working with orphans and street kids, animal safaris, zip-lining through jungles, and sky-diving(!!) I have returned fully invigorated and with a new lease on life! I also made friends from all over the world that I’m sure I will stay in touch with for years to come.  Travellers is an amazing organization that offers  life changing experiences to people of all ages, I will highly recommend it to everyone, and I will be planning another volunteer experience for myself as well as for my sons.  Thank-You so so much for the experience of a life time!

If you’d like to learn more about our projects on offer in South Africa, click HERE

Ever wondered what South Africa is really like? Well this video from our Organisers over there gives you a much better idea!

If you’d like to find out more about our placements in South Africa, click HERE

Tempted by a placement? Desperate to volunteer abroad? Working hard at school? University? Spending all your money on your mortgage? or petrol!? Well fear not….Hena Begum tells us how her group managed to fundraise for their placement….and have continued to raise funds since their return:

Our first efforts were unsuccessful. We tried at first to apply for funding through ‘Bangladesh Welfare Association Board’, they could not help us so we decided to write to lots of well established companies and ask them for sponsorship, but again we had no joy. We then decided to try fundraising.

The idea came up to do charity dinner events. Because I have many contacts in the Indian catering industry, I was able to arrange meetings to discuss and agree on prices where we will benefit from the events and make money for our project.

We had few meetings, then agreed on charging £15.00 per head, we take £10.00, the restaurant takes £5.00, this included a three or four course meal. In total we did three charity events, two Indian meals and one Italian. All included entertainment and our entertainers were from the local community and local school giving young disadvantaged children a chance to be recognised in society.

We originally had the idea of taking young people with us on the project, but this idea failed as they showed a lack of commitment in the end. Also, the project planning was for 10 months and our original target was to make £20K – there was no way we could have achieved this target, but we did manage to raise enough to get the three project leaders, myself, Gary and Lesley, to go South Africa.

I believe, if we had extended our project planning to 1-to-1.5 years we would have raised more and taken more people with us.

After the Charity Meals, we then did a Bingo Night and a Women Information Day, where I invited all the statutory services in the local Bangladeshi community to promote their service and took the opportunity to cook food and sell them on the day. We went round to take-away shops to provide us with food for the day and also ended up raising money going door to door to all the local takeaways to fund our trip.

We babysat, charging £10.00 per head, looking after my own nieces and nephews for half a day.

We held Raffle Prize Day at our workplace. We wrote to local stores and were able to obtain lots and lots of raffle prizes for a raffle event. We were also able to get toys/educational materials and many more items from shopdirect.com who did a big publicity on this for us because one of my work supervisors also worked part time for them.
I also went on live on local radio and advertised our plight on Burnley Express. Lots of personal friends gave donations towards the cost of our ticket etc.

Members of my family each paid £50.00 or £100.00 each towards the crates we decided to take with us with all the charity donations for the kids in Africa..

I could go on and on…

I got my dad to sponsor hoodies for us, where it had our names on, Knysna 2009 and our slogan “where dreams are made and lives are changed”.. we wore them to airport and back and throughout our placement too.. everybody was well impressed by this…!

We are in the process since we have been back of aiming to support two young lads from the youth centre who have been selected for the Homeless World cup in Milan. We are doing a press release for our own Lancashire County Council and local schools and Burnley Express asking people to sponsor and donate football kits, boots (etc) and also to try finance applications for passports, birth certificate, flight costs to Milan and so on. We hope to also go to Milan in September to support these two local lads play soccer.

We are also doing several other presentations and promotions to aid the youth centre’s wish list, so that we can send essential items for the centre and for the kids.

Thanks for your time.
Hena

If you’ve been inspired by Hena to fundraise for your project, have a look at our website for more information and help:

http://www.travellersworldwide.com/peripherals/fundraising.htm