Camps International will shortly be celebrating 10 years of operating responsible school and gap year expeditions across the globe. What started in 2002 as as a small operation on the coast of Kenya has grown to include camps in Borneo, Cambodia, Tanzania, Uganda and more recently Ecuador. Traditionally the summer season was the reserve of UK based schools, however as the message about our unique brand of responsible tourism has spread so has the location of travelling schools. In the last few years we have welcomed students from Australia, China, Vietnam and even Kenya. Dipesh Pabari our Africa Operations Manager was asked by the Association of International Schools in Africa (AISA) to write a piece on Responsible school tourism for Connections magazine. He has since delivered this article as a talk at the Annual conference in Nairobi. See the article below.

“As we wound down our summer season with a big smile of satisfaction and some relief, I could not help but think how middle class high school Kenyan students would fit into a program like ours. Most of our hip youth loathe the thought of spending a long weekend in ‘shags’ let alone spending a month planting trees and digging toilets. Then I wondered whether this lot who spend their holidays hanging out in Nairobi’s shopping malls would feel about spending a month in the south of France picking grapes in a vineyard or working on a sheep farm in the UK? Would this appeal to them?

Over the course of two months we hosted about 650 students from the UK in Kenya and Tanzania who spent a month in country working hard and playing hard. I recalled scenes of 30-40 pairs of hands digging away under the baking sun as they eagerly tried to complete their target on a trench in yet another neglected primary school on the periphery of Mwaluganje Elephant Sanctuary. I remembered another group who sang through the entire six days of laying blocks for a classroom in a little primary school tucked away on the South Coast and I smiled thinking about the team who refused to stop working until they finished breaking the old concrete of a massive water tank for cattle that was to be restored for elephants on Rukinga Wildlife Sanctuary.

This was my third full-blown season with Camps International – a responsible Travel company that operates its own camps and projects across the Coast Province in Kenya and around the Arusha-Moshi region in northern Tanzania and on the east in Tanga. With the primary clientele being under 18 high school students from the UK, one is immediately inclined to wonder how you would convince a teenager who has just completed high school to spend their first month of freedom taking bucket baths and digging holes in the African outback.

And equally important, is the enigma that 95% of these students actually fundraise and work odd jobs for over a year to save up and come out for these trips. This is not mommy and daddy paying to get rid of little Johnny for the summer. This is someone who believes that this is the right thing to do: a young mind who chooses to spend a month working on various projects that they may or may not see to completion on a continent that they have never set foot on and in the case of Kenya, probably the only thing they have heard is that people were hacking one another to pieces over some rigged election less than two years ago.

Expeditions such as the ones Camps International offer are part of a growing trend across the globe. For those that work in the industry, you will be very familiar with the ‘Gap Year’ industry which is all about offering young people a useful holiday which gives them exposure to new cultures and societies and hands on experience with various ‘problems’ from wildlife conservation to community development in parts of the world like ours – the so-called Third World. In the UK, taking a ‘gap year’ has become so much the norm that one would be considered weird if they went straight to University out of High School.

Like any other trend, the gap industry has not been spared from the critical gaze of the media, which keeps a tab on just how these expeditions are packaged. It’s a necessary evil that keep its eye on the profit moguls for like anything else that operates in regions like ours, it is so easy to turn pictures of swollen bellies and fly infested children or elephants grazing peacefully on the savanna landscape into profit.  As a Kenyan, I loathe what Africa has become in the western eyes (more so because we allowed it to happen) and thus approached entry into the responsible travel industry very cautiously.

Having worked in the not-for-profit sector for the past 15 years, words like ‘sustainable’, ‘eco’, ‘responsible’ ‘community’ had long since become a cryptic crossword divorced from the reality that they are used to describe. Most people who are not in the NGO are very skeptical about this do-good industry but that is another discussion. Suffice to say, that from where I am sitting now in a company that employs over 60 people and spends millions of shillings building schools, creating income generating activities for various local youth groups and women’s groups, repairs water tanks for elephants, builds new homes for widows and the elderly, plants thousands of trees and still manages to make some profit – I would like to think that those countless workshops and conferences that led to trends like ‘responsible travel’ and ‘sustainable tourism’ have actually played their part in creating what I hope one day will be the norm and not the exception.”

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)

 Tommie is just back from Camp Tsavo after a fantastic school trip with 50 Year Five students from Aga Khan Academy in Mombasa. Wonderful to hear all about the trip and share it especially knowing that the average age was 10yrs old and they loved getting stuck into project work!

It was on Tuesday morning when all roads led to Rukinga Wildlife Sanctuary for a four day school trip with Aga Khan Academy’s Year Five. My crew and I set off early from our Diani office heading to the impressive Aga Khan complex. On seeing the vehicles, the pupils went into a frenzy and they all brought their “ little” suitcases ready for loading up. Parents, School Principal and other pupils milled around the buses to bid farewell to the year 5’s. It was a bit of an emotional send off as some parents shed a tear or two seeing their little ones leaving for a couple of days. Considering that for many of them, this was their first time to leave home on their own without their parents we can totally understand…

Off we went. Our 3 hour journey, took us through Mombasa town and its little environs. Mariakani, Samburu, Taru and then MacKinnon and before we got to camp, we had a little stop at Amani curio shop where pupils did a bit of souvenir shopping and stretched their legs before embarking on the last leg towards camp. On arrival, Sammy the Camp Manager was eagerly waiting for us. The group was shown into their accommodation. After they’d settled in, safety and camp briefing ensued. After lunch the pupil’s had a bit of a rest and in the afternoon the games began!

Elephant Dung paper making and Bush skills and crafts were on the cards for the group. After these activities, day one was out.

The following day saw us dividing the group into two. One half went on safari to Tsavo East National Park and the other half went to Imani Women’s Group.

Whilst at Imani, the pupils’ got involved in basket making, weaving, bead work and some work on the farm. Rains are around the corner, and land preparation is imperative, so one of the activities was to till the women’s group piece of land in preparation for the rains. The group wishes to grow, maize and vegetables. By so doing, the group would increase food security for its members and depending on how good their harvests will be, even sell the extra crop for cash. It was great to see the pupil’s and teachers getting stuck in the projects and it was really rewarding to see great and positive results at the end of the day.

The day was summed up by a bit of a “jig” with the mama’s. Great singing and lovely dancing from all!

The next day the groups swapped activities.

And of course we celebrated World Water Day while at Camp Tsavo and that evening we organized a few activities and a trivial quiz to mark the day.

It was time to go back to Mombasa, and I reckon both the teachers and pupils did not want to go back. Great sign that they enjoyed themselves, no case of homesickness, no tears…pure fun!

Something that really touched us staff was how the students were moved by the real life stories from Imani Women and how they have dedicated their lives to improve the lives of others in their community. This did not go unnoticed as the pupils promised to go back to School, sensitize their fellow pupils, Teachers and parents on what Imani group is doing and do a fundraiser for them.

Back at the School, parents were eagerly waiting for their sons and Daughters to tell them all about their trip. Others were just happy and evidently relieved to see their young ones back in one piece.

Well done Aga Khan and looking forward to having you back with us soon!

Tommie…