Over the weekend of 6 – 8 September, Selati Game Reserve hosted one of their annual “Bush Buddies” excursions. Initiated in 2016 and supported by the Selati Wilderness Foundation (SWF), this programme fosters connections between students from Zivuko Secondary School in Letsitele and students from Penryn College in White River, aiming to bridge the gap between two schools with differing socio-economic backgrounds.
The programme brings six Grade 10 pupils from each school together at Selati Game Reserve three times a year. Its goals are twofold: to enhance the students’ understanding of the natural world and sustainability, and to encourage cross-cultural exchange, allowing them to learn from each other and build lasting relationships. The captivating bush environment and shared focus on environmental awareness support these objectives.
Over the weekend, the Bush Buddies participants entered their third and final excursion of the year. Pupils from Penryn College arrived on Thursday evening to get a full and meaningful day at Zivuko School on Friday. There, they helped plant seedlings in the school’s vegetable garden and learned about crop rotation and inter-cropping. The Bush Buddies then presented to Zivuko’s Grade 8 and Grade 9 classes on topics such as littering, pollution, and recycling. Following this, the group conducted invertebrate sampling at the Letsitele River to assess the river’s ecosystem health.
After that, it was back to Selati for everyone where they engaged in some entertaining team-building games. Lots of laughter filled the air as “shepherds” struggled to herd their blindfolded “sheep” and the group tied themselves in knots whilst playing a rope game. The plan that evening was to head out on a night drive to view some nocturnal species, but the game drive came to the camp as a pride of lions walked directly in front of the camp giving the students a breathtaking view of these apex predators from a safe distance behind an electrified fence.
Saturday was an action-packed day of game drives where the group were treated to excellent sightings of elephants and black rhino. In between, they watched a documentary about the illegal leopard skin trade and enjoyed a refreshing dip in the swimming pool as well as a game of volleyball.
Sunday was an emotional day as the Bush Buddies experience was coming to an end. On their final day, the group experienced a wonderful white rhino sighting before heading back to camp where they spent some time sitting alone, doing some reflection journalling of their Bush Buddies experience. It was a sad goodbye as the pupils boarded buses that travelled in opposite directions to their respective schools. Despite the buses travelling in different directions, there was an overwhelming feeling that many of these pupils could well choose similar direction in their adult lives. Their passion and enthusiasm for wildlife and conservation was palpable and we look forward to hearing where life is going to take them. Undoubtedly, we have twelve inspired ambassadors for conservation and hopefully future field guides, biologists and nature conservationists.
