A few months ago DAKTARI Bush School & Wildlife Orphanage applied for the Kudu award, which is an initiative to celebrate the successes and contributions of individuals and groups in conservation management in South Africa. The awards are presented by the South African National Parks as a way of rewarding excellence in conservation by external stakeholders. It is also sponsored by Total SA and FNB.
After the first announcement of DAKTARI being recognized as one of the finalists, our co-founders Michele and Ian Merrifield travelled to Johannesburg to attend the Kudu Awards ceremony. Knowing that the other shortlisted projects in the “Non profit making Institution” category were much bigger than ours, we were already extremely proud of being part of such an esteemed group of organisations.
Imagine our surprise when Ian Merrifield was called on stage to be the winner of the award!!! Everyone at DAKTARI was extremely proud of this achievement and grateful to SANParks for recognising our conservation efforts.
The DAKTARI team is more than ever ready to honour this award!
Thank you to all of you who helped us to go that far through your support. We are all winners!