Before coming to volunteer for a year, our marketing manager Silke set up a fundraiser for our organization. She raised almost R27.000 and decided to use that money to renovate the dorms for the children attending our environmental education program. The dorms were in need of a new lick of paint and some renovations and…
Hi my name is Bethany, I’m 18 years old and from Northern Ireland. I stayed at DAKTARI for 6 weeks. I came to DAKTARI as it offered me a chance to work with children and animals, helping me to figure out which I preferred to work with, while also allowing me to experience Africa through…
Sunday was an exciting day for our winners of the week from the past 8 weeks! They were invited by Sausage Tree Safari Camp to go on a game drive on their beautiful reserve. The children had an amazing experience as they saw rhino, elephants, hyena, zebra and many more incredible wildlife! And all of that because they…
Catherine was only 18 years old and had just finished high school when she came to volunteer at DAKTARI for 3 weeks in summer. She had always dreamt about South Africa and DAKTARI was the perfect mix between teaching kids and taking care of wild animals. This was 10 years ago and yet Catherine still…
July was a busy month here at DAKTARI. With a big group of volunteers we couldn’t possibly let everyone teach the whole day. But luckily there was still a lot to be done around the camp! We split our volunteers into two groups. These two groups switched daily between teaching and maintenance. That way everyone…
Last week our volunteers that Thelma, one of the children that stayed with us for the week, couldn’t see well. Volunteer Maria “Madu” jumped in right away to help her. Thelma wasn’t able to follow our environmental education program as easily as the other kids in her group as she couldn’t actually see properly. She…
The end of May was quite rough here at DAKTARI. Those of you who came to volunteer with us in the last couple of years will definitely know Lily. She’s a duiker that was raised here and then released on our reserve. Every few days she still came into the camp to get some birdseed.…
My name is Marjo Kommeren, aged 55 years and I’m Dutch. I stayed at DAKTARI for 4 weeks. I always wanted to come to South Africa, to work as a nurse, but it never happened because I got married, got kids etc. Now my kids are grown up en independent, I decided to go traveling…
Back in November, we set up a campaign to collect funds for a new kitchen. A few months later, we are excited to announce that it is finally ready! Anyone that’s been to DAKTARI before knows our kitchen wasn’t really equipped to cook for big groups of people. There was barely enough room in there…
Here at DAKTARI, we are always saving baby animals… some we find and some are brought to us. A few of the most common animals include; squirrels, bats, mongooses, bushbucks, klipspringers and bush babies. Bush babies are my personal favorite. Who wouldn’t love that little face with the big eyes? On March 13th, one of…
