If you’re looking to book your expedition with Camps International this month we have a fantastic prize draw on offer for anyone who confirms their place by the end of the month.

Book any Life or Gap trip with Camps International this month to be in with a chance to win £100 Cotswold Outdoor gift vouchers!

Save yourself £100 of essential travel equipment. Just choose your Gap or Life destination and book before the end of May 2012 (5pm GMT on 31st May 2012) to be included in the draw.

As usual with our monthly prize draws, we will choose the winner from a hat and post the video on our Facebook page so that you can see the draw. The prize draw will be held on the 1st June 2012.

So what are you waiting for? Enquire now to find out more about the trips available to you, or book online now! You can also give us a call on 0844 800 1127 to have a chat with one of the team. This prize draw only applies to new Gap and Life bookings made during April 2012.

We don’t often blog about our wildlife conservation programs in Kenya but that is not to say that it is any less important than all the other community and environmental work we are involved with. Since Steve Mwasi relocated to Camp Tsavo, he has been determined to create more structure to what we do and ensure what we are doing contributes to the overall conservation program that our partners who run Rukinga Wildlife Sanctuary are deeply involved with. After some discussions with Dr. Mwangi who heads up the Wildlife research on Rukinga, we revisited our wildlife monitoring program and how we collect data and for what purpose. Steve Mwasi is now our main Wildlife Program Coordinator and recounts what we have been doing for the past eight months at Camp Tsavo…

Rukinga Wildlife Sanctuary is a wildlife corridor linking Tsavo East and Tsavo West National Park, so it falls under the Tsavo Ecosystem. Most areas within this ecosystem experience arid and semi-arid climate with rainfall being sporadic and patchy. Water is a critical resource in Tsavo and its distribution determines the movement of mammalian species with the Acacia Commiphora being the dominant tree species in the area.

The number of different species of wildlife on Rukinga varies between dry season and rainy season. Wildlife species have adapted, so that they are able to satisfy their demand during both seasons. One of the possible means, which wildlife have used for long time to cope with the changes in the ecosystem, is through migration. Thus, the main purpose of monitoring widlife is to establish the population dynamics on the sanctuary. This involves physical counting of wildlife species, identifying sex as well as number of individuals. This data is then collated together with the GPS coordinates where those species have been spotted.

Our new Wildlife Monitoring program at Camp Tsavo began in July 2011 and all our groups who visit are very much involved and very important to the process. Data is collected during game drives in the sanctuary in which case the game drives routes are split into transects so as to avoid backtracking and ensure accuracy of data. So far 17 trips specifically for wildlife monitoring have been done and the data collected handed over to the Wildlife Works Research Department. During the initial stages of data collection the area was going through a dry spell and the vegetation was not dense, hence animals could easily be spotted from a distance. As water is available in troughs and tanks, sitings during this period are quite common.

Initially, during the game drives, wildlife species counted involved mammals but we later started including raptors (Birds of prey). Game drives are mostly done in the afternoon as from 3.30pm up to 6.00pm due to the fact that the animals will be hidden away under shelter during the midday sun and will come out to the waterholes when it is cooler.

Wildlife species such as Elephants, Giraffes, Zebras, Buffaloes, Elands, Kudus, Gerenuks, Warthogs, Impalas, Gazelles and Dikdiks, Baboons were regularly counted. In terms of Cat Species, lions and Cheetah sightings were counted but not regularly. Raptors spotted regularly were the Eastern Pale Chanting Goshawk, Martial Eagle and Tawny Eagle.

With the onset of short rains as from October to December the ranch vegetation changed drastically. Vegetation became dense and natural waterholes filled up. This impacted on the movement of wildlife such that chances of spotting and counting wildlife reduced. Some of the roads on the ranch also became impassable (and just one of the reasons why we also spend some time maitaining the roads) so there was not much wildlife monitoring during this period.

The short rains stopped in December 2011 and as from January 2012 the ranch vegetation was still green and most of the waterholes were filled with water. However, the dry season began hitting again in February and some waterholes dried up and vegetation density reduced. Wildlife sightings improved and as per the monitoring we did within this period, we saw an increase on wildlife distributions in the portion of transects we have covered. We are still carrying on with data collection and we will certainly have more understanding of the wildilfe distribution after Wildlife Works research department has developed the data base.

Waterhole Monitoring

We managed to start monitoring waterholes at the beginning of this year. Due to the good short rains most of the waterholes filled up. We have been focusing primarily on natural waterholes in which case they can be classified as scrapes/water pans, medium waterholes and large waterholes and are able to retain water for two to three months. The amount of water available will of course vary due to meteorological and soil factors as well as the intensity of use by wildlife. The main purpose of conducting waterhole monitoring  was to try and determine the level of diversity of wildlife that use the waterholes on Rukinga as well as to investigate the patterns of waterhole visitation by different species. So far we have done 2 sessions and we have first targeted waterholes which are near our camp. Data collected includes time taken to drink, sex of the species and number of individuals. Species recorded include Elephants, Giraffes as well as birds’ species such as the African fish eagle.

We will keep you posted as the data starts to reveal patterns.

Thanks,

Steve Mwasi (Wildlife Program Coordinator, Camp Kenya)

Susanna Matters opened our eyes to something so significant and so easy to assist with when she came at the beginning of this year and now both Susanna and ourselves know there is a lot more we can do to make a very big difference in a lot girls lives. Susanna has kindly shared this little story which means a lot to us and more to the girls of Muhaka so please do take the time to read (and note that this is just the beginning)…

Oprah would have called it an ‘aha’ moment. But I’ll always think of it as my Muhaka moment. The moment which confirmed for me that small things can, in fact, make the biggest difference. What are these small things? Easy. They’re sanitary pads.

A few months ago, if you had asked me what my opinion was of sanitary pads, I’d probably have given you an answer along the lines of ‘useful but boring’. Prior to travelling to Kenya, in my world, pads were about as unexceptional as a cloud in the sky. I would have never brought them up spontaneously in conversation as a topic of great interest or dream of one day writing a whole blog about them. Pads would have only occupied my thoughts long enough for me to pick up a colourful packet off the store shelf and put it in my shopping trolley. That’s right, about twenty seconds.

But these days, honestly, pads seem to be occupying my mind most of the time.  When I think a product is too expensive, its price gets converted into sanitary pads. And when I think my day is tough, I think how much tougher it would be without the reassurance of knowing I could access a supply of pads whenever needed. This newfound fixation is no accident. Rather, it’s the beginning of an evolving story which I’d like to share with you.

It was the morning of a sweltering day in Muhaka Village. Not coping terribly well in the humidity, I excused my red-faced and slightly dishevelled self from the secondary school staffroom to sink down in the shade of a conveniently placed tree. My mind was full of the students, wondering how they managed to stay so focused in the unforgiving heat. I looked up to see Madame walking over to join me.  Always a picture of calm, she settled herself next to me and nodded patiently as I praised the resilience of her students. It was then that I learnt for the first time that the girls I’d been enjoying teaching missed school for a whole week once a month because they had no pads to use. In fact, those girls would end up missing twenty percent of the school year, making the already intimidating final exam, a near-impossible feat.

I’ve been lucky enough to have volunteered for various organisations who advocate for the rights of girls for some years. But it was not until that moment, with Madame revealing she occasionally bought pads for her students using her own inadequate salary, that I fully understood the importance of continued development efforts and international attention on the empowerment of girls. In the twenty-first century, to have girls going without basic hygiene products, to have them choosing to isolate themselves from their family and community, to have them risk infection and miss out on educational or vocational opportunities, is unacceptable. How much longer can we allow girls to be disadvantaged just because they happen to be girls?

Camps International is committed to improving the livelihoods of girls in Muhaka. When I mentioned the dire need for sanitary pads to staff, the reaction was swift. Within three days, sanitary pads had been made available for the students of the local school and within a month, sixty students had been assisted through this programme. These days Madame says ‘the girls are really encouraged and doing well in their exams. They’re really comfortable’.

I’m back at home now in the process of establishing ‘Goods for Girls’, a not-for-profit organisation which will continue to provide sanitary pads to the girls of Muhaka in partnership with the Camps International Foundation and the local community. I’m looking into developing the programme further in terms of environmentally sustainable solutions and I dream of slowly transforming it into a production model, operated by the women of Muhaka. It would seem something small is turning into something very significant indeed.

My time with Camps International proved that great changes can be initiated by something as small as a sanitary pad. So I say to you all, never underestimate your capacity to affect positive change – it only takes something small.