DAKTARI keeps supporting the communities during these difficult times by distributing food parcels. So far, we have distributed 500 parcels, or 42,000 meals to 9 different villages. Let us take you through the whole process so you can have an idea of how we do it! How did we choose the families? We work with [...]
Fighting Hunger During COVID-19 We are all going through unprecedented and challenging times, and as it is a small NGO, DAKTARI is heavily impacted by this crisis. Schools and borders have been closed since March, thus we cannot run our onsite environmental education program. This has resulted in a significant lack of income when we [...]
First of all, we hope that everyone is keeping well during this COVID-19 outbreak crisis, and our thoughts go out to those who have been impacted by the virus in any way. At DAKTARI we have taken some measures at the early stages to help prevent the spread of the virus: - We are not [...]
Mobotse. Mobotse in Sepedi means beautiful in English. Mobotse is the word that comes to my mind when I look back at the two weeks I spent at DAKTARI. Mobotse were the office staff, the volunteers, the kids, the kitchen and maintenance staff, and the animals. Mobotse is the Sepedi language I tried to speak. [...]
Goodbye Our Beloved Martin It is with a broken heart that we announce that our beloved cheetah Martin passed away peacefully on February 17th. Martin had not been feeling great in the past few days. He is old, around 20 years old, so we were monitoring very closely for any sign of potential sickness. On [...]
A Lifelong Dream Let me start by introducing myself. My name is Chloé. I just turned 27 years, wow that’s old! I was born and raised in Belgium and have been traveling all my life but mostly in Europe. The reason I decided to come to DAKTARI is not that simple. I have had a [...]
Welcoming Pacou But Pacou is a waterbuck that was brought to us back in April. We raised bottle-fed him and did everything we could to save him. Raising antelope is a big task that requires a lot of time and effort and that doesn't always have a happy ending. If you'd like to see how [...]
December 22nd, 2019 was an exciting day for our banded mongooses (and everyone at the camp)! […]
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 [...]
Saturday March 9th was a big day for Eva Diesel and her brother Steven. The duo came all the way from Corsica a few months ago for their Inside Oaks Project. The Inside Oaks Project is a part of street artist JR's big Inside Out Project. For this instalment of the global art project 72 portraits [...]
On Saturday March 2nd, some of our volunteers went down to The Thirsty Giraffe to participate in a charity dodgeball tournament. The tournament was set up by Scales and all proceeds went to Flying 4 Rhino and the Pangolin Rescue Fund. Six of our volunteers teamed up to conquer the other eleven teams. But their efforts were to no avail [...]
January has been a busy month again for our wildlife orphanage! We welcomed 5 new babies, four squirrels and one klipspringer. The DAKTARI team was first raising the 4 squirrels: Tracy, Morris, Wildy and Lana. These little babies fell from their nest earlier than they should. Some volunteers took care of them and they are [...]