Seeing the beautiful smiles and elation on the faces of the young kids from Lokusero primary/secondary and Enaikishomi school as they received their certificates of completion of the Wild Shot Outreach photography program was indeed a sight to behold.
Through the support from Lewa Wildlife Conservancy and the Laikipia Forum, Wild Shots Outreach founders Mike Kendrick and Harriet Nimmo were able to hold a four day course training on wildlife photography to 16 students from Lokusero and Enaikishomi schools on the 28th to 31st of March 2022.
Wild Shots Outreach’s aim is to engage young people from disadvantaged communities in wildlife and wild places through photography. The programme focuses on teaching new skills, providing a “focus” and introduction to the natural world and helps inspire and raise the aspirations of these learners – the conservationists of tomorrow.
The project also addresses the need for more young people from local communities to experience the wildlife and wild places they previously had little or no access to. It is hoped that the battle for conservation can be won by sharing the beauty and value of Africa’s wildlife with all its citizens.
Throughout the course, the students showed keen interest in gaining skills in photography as well as general knowledge on Conservation Education as well as Natural Resources Management. This was exhibited at the end of the training by the level of creativity and great photos that they managed to take during the game drives and during the training sessions.
Eva Blessing from Enaikishomi primary school was elated to share with us that it was her first time ever to hold and use a camera and at the time of her certification, she had acquired great skills on focusing, composing and capturing images that could tell stories on conservation. Her sentiments were echoed by Byron Bombale from Lokuseru High school who added that he plans to use the new skills to tell conservation stories not only at school but also within his community.
A group photo of the participants of the Wild Shots Outreach pilot program held at the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy
(Photo Credit: Harriet Nimmo)
Wild Shots Outreach is hopeful that what has started as a pilot program may eventually find root in Kenya and be taken up as course either in schools or as a program area within the partnering organizations of interest in Conservation Education.
This initiative was made a success courtesy of
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