Helena from the Kareiga Game Reserve sent us over this blog post and some fantastic pictures. It looks like the volunteers have been extremely busy carrying out community development work with a difference. Here’s Helena’s blog post on the subject:

We are very proud to report that our conservation volunteers at Kariega Game Reserve have done FANTASTIC work at a nearby rural school. Kariega Game Reserve started a charity trust fund, called the Kariega Foundation. With funds sponsored by Kariega Game Reserve, we renovated the pre-primary classroom at our local, rural school. The school is very under funded and some of the classrooms in a terrible state. We decided enough-is-enough, and our volunteers pulled up their sleeves, and started the enormous job of completely renovating an entire classroom. Floorboards needed to be pulled up, the ceiling was fixed, and many hours of painting were done. Our end result was amazing and the little ones at the school can now look forward to many hours of happy learning in their new classroom (have a look at our “before” and “after” photos!). Thank you to all our conservation volunteers who helped with this project.

The World Cup may have brought the Rainbow Nation into the lime-light, but it appears that volunteers on gap year projects have known about the benefits of South Africa for ages. In July, the Year Out Group named South Africa as the most popular destination for structured gap year projects – a prize the country has now won for the last three years running. This year, Kenya also returned to the top three – up 12 places from last year’s position, which is great news for the continent and of course for us at Worldwide Experience who run structured placements …

This past week on Kariega Game Reserve was quite eventful for our conservation volunteers.  It started off with two days of Blue Wildebeest capture.  We moved almost 100 surplus wildebeest from one section of the reserve to another.  Game Capture is always exciting, the interaction between man, helicopters and a 270kg wildebeest always leads to a bit of adrenalin … an experience our volunteers will never forget. Luck was once again with us this week as we were fortunate enough to witness some lions stalk and kill a blesbuck on a night drive.  Witnessing nature at her most brutal, yet …

. Before I got distracted with the pressing matter of shark conservation, I was going to let you know how Jacques’ group, taking their wildlife conservation holidays in Kariega, got on with their beach ecology operation at Kenton-on-sea. Kenton is a popular tourist resort in South Africa, with the month of December being the most popular for visitors. During this month, braais on the beach are commonplace and, with the locals all getting ready for Christmas, plenty of festive parties take place on the sands. Unfortunately, with an increase in visitors, comes an increase in litter, and with the tourist …

The worst part of a wildlife conservation experience is, for most people, the part where they have to leave behind the perfect climate and experiences associated with their time in South Africa and head home. As oxpeckers don’t migrate, I’m lucky in that I get to stay on the game reserve on a year round basis. However, I do dream of being able to visit some of our conservation experiences in India and Sri Lanka one day.   Like me, game rangers and programme coordinators are lucky enough to stay in South Africa all year round, and for this reason, many …