Children of Conservation

Dr. Jane Goodall awards co-founder Lifetime Achievement!

Sun, 17 Sep 2023 20:56:00 GMT

Children of Conservation co-founder Kerry Stumpe recently received Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary’s Lifetime Achievement Award from Dr. Jane Goodall during its 25th Anniversary Gala in Kampala, Uganda. This award recognized Stumpe and CofC for their continued efforts to improve the lives of animals, workers and children involved in conservation over the past 20 years.

Posted in Uncategorized

Read All About It! Children of Conservation featured in TravelEssence Magazine

Tue, 20 Jul 2021 17:40:00 GMT

Children of Conservation founder Kerry, and board member, Mike are featured in this month’s edition of TravelEssence Magazine. The two eco-heroes are acknowledged for their incredible work helping to build gabions to protect the shoreline of Ngamba Island Chimapanzee Sanctuary from catastrophic rising water levels due to global warming.

You can read the article in TravelEssence Magazine, read across the world by passionate travelers, here.

Posted in Uncategorized

Kicking off 2021 with emergency construction in Uganda

Tue, 26 Jan 2021 01:36:00 GMT

The challenges of 2020 were not just limited to COVID-19 at Ngamba Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Uganda. The catastrophe of climate change came to their shores in the form of rising lake levels and uncontrollable flooding. Water levels shot up in 2020 and destroyed infrastructure, piers and eroded the delicate shoreline of the 100 acre island.

Ngamba is home to 50 rescued chimpanzees from cruelty situations around the world. These poor Great Apes have lived in circuses, traveling zoos, private homes, prison-like conditions and much worse. They are cared for at Ngamba Island by a team of expert primatologists and keepers and live freely in 99 acres of forest. The natural boundary of the lake keeps them on the island and they can roam free at night, making nests in the trees as they would in the wild, or come in to the safe, caged area of the island where they are offered broth before bed.

Children of Conservation has partnered with Ngamba Island to support their conservation work, community outreach and support for a decade and we knew we had to help when we heard the island was damaged. Board members Kerry and Mike traveled to Uganda this January to assist in the construction of ‘gabions’ in the water to protect the shoreline and prevent further damage. Below, you can see them working on the gabions in Lake Victoria with Ngamba Island staff.

This is Children of Conservation’s first project to address the devastating effects of a natural disaster due to climate change. At its peak, Ngamba Island only rises 19 feet above the lake’s edge. Although it’s the second largest freshwater lake in the world, Victoria’s water level has risen a record 5 feet in the past year, claiming 30% of Ngamba Island’s shoreline.

Board member, Mike, says: “For much of the day, we’re working in chest high water, first positioning the gabions to assure they’re level and secure from the possible undertow. “

CofC founder, Kerry, says: “With each rock delivery, we line up in our human chain to transport the rocks one by one from the shore to the 4 guys at the gabion cages who carefully position the stones in the baskets. Every 10 to 15 the “gabion guys” disappear beneath the water’s surface to install cross-wires, which have to be done every 8 inches to stabilize and secure the sides from buckling. Mike & I revel in the securing of the crossties as it allows our 55 year old backs to rest for a bit.”

We are so proud of you, Kerry & Mike!

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged africa , chimpanzees , ecotourism , Ngamba Island , Uganda

Give the Gift of Hope this Holiday Season

Wed, 11 Nov 2020 21:49:00 GMT

This year has been so hard for so many people. We know you’ve been asked to give and give. We want to offer you the opportunity to give one last time for 2020 and make a difference to an individual in Africa that you can form a lasting bond with.

Six students have been part of a Children of Conservation pilot program. Five years ago, they were nominated by their village chiefs, as part of an exchange program between conservationists and Kenyan villages that killed elephants to generate funds. We entered binding agreements with the village chiefs that they would no longer kill elephants if we provided the best education possible for their brightest kids.

So, for the past five years ZERO elephants have been killed by these communities and six smart young people attended great high schools. This summer they graduated and every single one of them was offered a place at university.

They are so impressive and they are the first in their communities to go to university. This is especially important for the girls who are breaking through traditional gender roles.

Now, these six students need YOUR support to be able to take up their places and earn their degrees. You can give them this life-changing opportunity for as little as $96 per month.

The students have taken the opportunity YOU gave them and have grasped it with both hands!

Now we need your help to cover the costs for their first year in university. Their fees are not high, relative to education costs here, but for their families it is an unmanageable amount of money.

Can you sign up as a sponsor for one of these incredible, hard-working young people? Sponsors will receive personal communication from their student, along with updates on their progress in school and a photograph.

If you’d prefer to sponsor a student in increments, we offer the opportunity to make a monthly payment towards their education. Here are the monthly payments for each student:

Your contribution will cover their university tuition fees, accommodation, books and living costs.

To sponsor one of these extraordinary kids, click here:

Happy Holidays to you and your family! Thank you for all your support this year.

Posted in Uncategorized

Protecting Mountain Gorillas in honor of Rafiki

Sun, 04 Oct 2020 23:20:00 GMT

In June of this year, villagers entered Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park in Uganda hunting for food. They encountered one of Bwindi’s best known silverbacks, Rafiki, panicked and speared him. Rafiki died, leaving the Nkuringo group vulnerable and their future uncertain.

Bwindi is home to 43% of all the world’s remaining 1000 mountain gorillas. The loss of Rafiki is enormous from a biodiversity perspective, but also a tourism and economic perspective. Tens of thousands of visitors trek into the park every year to catch a glimpse of habituated gorillas like Rafiki and his family. As a result of COVID-19, borders have been closed, hotels shuttered and treks canceled. No visitors have been to the area around the national park, normally bustling with tourists, since March. The impact on the economy of the rural areas around Bwindi has been devastating.

In response to the killing of Rafiki, Children of Conservation is partnering with Dr Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, a leading primatologist and expert in Uganda’s delicate gorilla population to raise money to prevent any more deaths. Together we plan to raise funds to support communities around the park, so that villagers don’t have to hunt and endanger the gorillas. We will also fund surveillance in the park to prevent poaching, gorilla health monitoring and COVID-19 prevention.

You can help by donating today!

Posted in COVID-19 , Uganda , Uncategorized and tagged africa , conservation , gorilla , gorillas , Uganda , wildlife , wildlifeconservation

Celebrating Success

Wed, 09 Sep 2020 18:21:00 GMT

Six Kenyan teenagers have been part of pilot program between Children of Conservation and Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. In exchange for agreements from their village leaders that no more elephants will be killed, we’ve been providing scholarships for their brightest kids to go to the best school in their region. The six students all graduated high school earlier this summer and we are so proud to announce that every one of them has been offered a place at university!
For these young people, from very impoverished rural communities, they are the first in their family to go to university.

We are also so proud of the range of degrees they are studying for, from business management to environmental engineering to conservation and wildlife management.
The students have taken the opportunity we gave them and have grasped it with both hands!

Now we need your help to cover the costs for their first year in University. Their fees are not high, relative to education costs here, but for their families it is an unmanageable amount of money.

If you’d prefer to sponsor a student in increments, we offer the opportunity to make a monthly payment towards their education. Here are the monthly payments for each student:

Your contribution will cover their university tuition fees, accommodation, books and living costs.

To sponsor one of these extraordinary kids, click here:

Posted in Kenya , Uncategorized and tagged education , elephantprotection , Kenya , scholarships , sponsor , sponsorship , students

These students, from impoverished communities, need your help to go to university this Fall.

Sanitation Stations during COVID-19 crisis

Tue, 30 Jun 2020 01:11:00 GMT

We’ve been busy during lockdown!

We have been providing sanitation stations to villages in Uganda to help suppress the spread of COVID-19.

These foot-operated handwashing stations will allow people to wash their hands and prevent the spread of coronavirus and other infectious diseases.

Our key supporters raised enough money to provide 40 sanitation stations to communities in Uganda with no running water. Each station costs only $100.

To everyone who contributed, we owe you a massive thank you! The tangible difference you are making to helping Africans fight COVID-19 is amazing. Thank you .

If you’d like to contribute you can click here .

Posted in COVID-19 , Uganda and tagged covid-19 , sanitation , Uganda , WASH

SUPPORTING AFRICA’S WILDLIFE WORKERS

Tue, 30 Jun 2020 00:59:00 GMT

During the challenges Of the COVID-19 crisis, we are continuing to support frontline wildlife conservation workers and their families. We are providing hundreds of masks for wildlife workers in Uganda And need more supplies.

Can You Help? Click Here to Learn More About Our Women’s Project and their mask-making during COVID-19.

Posted in COVID-19 and tagged covid-19 , frontline , masks , Uganda