Covers all costs for a Community Guardian for a month – that’s one village protected!
Currently, the focus is on rural communities in Matabeleland North Province, the North-West of Zimbabwe, introducing them to low tech tools and techniques that can help them to better coexist and appreciate the elephants they live side by side with.
This is through a five stage process and starts with attitude change made possible by ‘Through The Eyes Of An Elephant’:
Introduce community members to the Education Program – changing perceptions of elephants and introducing new ways of coexistence.
Being invited into the community to assess their needs.
Development of a coexistence strategy based on the community specifics and what we know works elsewhere.
Training and implementation to empower the community themselves.
Feedback, data collection and strategy adjustment as required.
So far we have had community groups and Elders from 10 local villages.
The elders from the local Sikhabelo community having experienced ‘Through The Eyes Of An Elephant’ and met our Ambassador Herd became really excited by the Chilli Fence solution to crop-raiding. They asked us for chilli fence training and to help them further. Having been invited into their community we teamed up with Connected Conservation to understand the problems they are experiencing coexisting with wildlife next to Jafuta.
In the other community local to Jafuta – Woodlands – we have been helping with interventions to prevent crop-raiding from wild elephants. This has taken some time to gain traction, but recently we were overjoyed to receive this message from one of the community elders:
“The Chilli concept is slowly gaining support from the community and more people are interested in planting chilli in their plots. It is amazing to hear stories from the elderly farmers who are now positive about how the chilli works. It is this interest that has led to the stocks running out. The farmers are therefore appealing for additional oil & chilli.”
Communities Manager
Pays for equipment & chillis needed for a training session with a single village on chilli mitigation techniques
Pays for a site visit & training for one village on appropriate crop protection measures from elephants
Pays for a smartphone for a Community Guardian
Pays for phone credit for a Community Guardian for a year
Covers all costs for a Community Guardian for a month – that’s one village protected!