Selati hosts Bush Buddies excursion
Initiated in 2016 and supported by the Selati Wilderness Foundation (SWF), this programme fosters connections between learners from Zivuko Secondary School in Letsitele and learners from Penryn College in White River, aiming to bridge the gap between two schools with differing socioeconomic backgrounds.
Selati Game Reserve recently hosted one of its annual Bush Buddies excursions. The programme brings six Gr 10 learners from each school together at Selati Game Reserve three times a year. Its goals are to enhance the learners’ understanding of the natural world and sustainability, and to encourage cross-cultural exchange, allowing them to learn from each other and build lasting relationships.
The captivating bush environment and shared focus on environmental awareness support these objectives. Over the past weekend, the Bush Buddies participants entered their third and final excursion of the year. Learners from Penryn College arrived on Thursday evening to get a full and meaningful day at Zivuko School on Friday.
There, they helped plant seedlings in the school’s vegetable garden and learned about crop rotation and inter-cropping. The Bush Buddies then presented to Zivuko’s G 8 and Gr 9 classes on topics such as littering, pollution, and recycling. Following this, the group conducted invertebrate sampling at the Letsitele River to assess the river’s ecosystem health. After that, it was back to Selati for everyone where they engaged in some entertaining team-building games.
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Lots of laughter filled the air as ‘shepherds’ struggled to herd their blindfolded ‘sheep’, and the group tied themselves in knots whilst playing a rope game. The plan that evening was to head out on a night drive to view some nocturnal species, but the game drive came to the camp as a pride of lions walked directly in front of the camp giving the learners a breathtaking view of these apex predators from a safe distance behind an electrified fence.
Saturday was an action-packed day of game drives where the group was treated to excellent sightings of elephants and black rhinos. In between, they watched a documentary about the illegal leopard skin trade and enjoyed a refreshing dip in the swimming pool as well as a game of volleyball.
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Sunday was an emotional day as the Bush Buddies experience was coming to an end. On their final day, the group experienced a wonderful white rhino sighting before heading back to camp where they spent some time sitting alone, doing some reflection journalling of their Bush Buddies experience.
