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 [...]
Hi there! My name is Silke, I’m 22 years young and live in Belgium. Normally, I was supposed to stay at DAKTARI for 4 weeks. However, after living my dream for 3 weeks, I realised I wasn’t ready to say goodbye yet and decided to add another 2. I’m sad to say that my adventure [...]
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 [...]
We said goodbye to our two jackals Minnie and JP on Wednesday The nice people from Umoya Khulula Wildlife Centre contacted us to tell us they have a big enclosure available for them and of course we couldn't say no. They came to pick them up Wednesday afternoon and transported our beautiful jackals safely to their [...]
Over the last month, our animal team and volunteers worked hard to renovate a part of our meerkat enclosure. We dug out the old sand, put in some pipes for them to play in, brought fresh sand from the nearby river bed and decorated the enclosure with logs, plants and wooden platforms. Gasper and Tikki [...]
On October, DAKTARI and the Anti-Poaching Unit of the Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre (HESC) went to three local high schools (Maahlamele, Rakgolokwana and Leoma) to discuss the terrible crime of poaching and to do an anti-poaching demonstration. Approximately 900 students were present to meet Simon, Corlet and their Belgian Shepherd. Simon first explained what poaching [...]
“Hello. My name is Joshua Hopkins or David as some people called me by my middle name for the first week or so. I am from Scotland and I stayed at DAKTARI for a total of 10 weeks. I really wanted to spend my summer doing something productive and rewarding and as I loved working [...]
"My name is Léna, I am 20 years old, I come from France and I stayed 3 weeks at DAKTARI. I always wanted to do volunteering and I decided in November 2017 that it would be this year ! So I did a huge amount of research on the internet about volunteering, others volunteer’s experiences, organisations all around [...]