Education is Crucial for Conservation
Tomorrow’s wildlife leaders must be equipped with a solid education today, empowering them to make informed choices to tackle the challenges facing Africa’s wildlife and people. Ewaso Lions has incorporated education into our conservation programmes from the beginning. Looking ahead, we are refining our approach to conservation education. Our new Conservation Education Program aims to maximize impact, streamline project administration, and evaluate for effectiveness.
Meet Kalastar
Kalastar, our new Education Officer.
We have hired a new Education Officer, Kalastar Lekalaille, to design, coordinate, and help carry out all our conservation education activities. These include supervising all students sponsored by Ewaso Lions, running the Wildlife Cinema program, supporting existing Wildlife Clubs at local schools and setting up new ones, maintaining educational materials, ordering new school supplies, teaching warriors from the Warrior Watch program, supervising the teacher for Mama Simba, coordinating logistics and designing agenda / curriculum for Lion Kids Camp, and helping evaluate each education activity to ensure conservation goals are being reached. Kalastar is a local Kenyan, from the Samburu village of Kiltamany and is based at our Conservation Camp in Westgate Conservancy.
Scholarships and School Support
Under the Ewaso Lions scholarship, school tuition is covered for four full academic years. We currently provide scholarships for the full secondary education of four secondary students and one college student. Additionally, Ewaso Lions will provide additional support to local schools in upcoming education programmes. Read more here.
Update on the Students
Ewaso Lions is currently sponsoring 4 students in secondary school and one college student. Recently, our Education Officer went to check in on the students’ progress. Here’s Kalastar’s report:
Solomon Lmantari, Wamba Boys School.
Solomon Lmantari is our student at Wamba Boys School. He in his third year of school. He has improved for the exams in biology, geography, business studies, and others. He has already done better than in the previous term’s exams. He is really showing positive attitudes towards education and we are looking forward to having impressive results during his final exams.
Saniki Lelengeju, Moi Girls Secondary School.
Saniki Lelengeju is in her second year at Moi Girls Secondary School in Maralal. I found that discipline-wise Saniki is among the top-rated students and, furthermore, she was selected to be the compound Prefect of the whole school! The Deputy Principal was also very glad to meet me at their school and was very happy to see Saniki with the new books we provided her.
Painoti Letabari, Kisima Girls School.
Painoti Letabari and Joy Letabare both attend Kisima Girls School in Kisima. Painoti is in her final year while Joy is in her second year of secondary school. I was very happy to hear that they are improving much more than in their previous term exams and that both are very disciplined students. The two girls promised that now they have the added advantage of revision materials they will definitely pass the rest of the other terms’ exams; which made me proud of them. Painoti was very happy about the French book and she said that has already started improving in French; her score having increased from 49% to 60%. Painoti is also looking at starting a tree-planting project at her school.
> Read a blog about Painoti’s background
Joy, Kisima Girls School.
Samson Lerosion is attending Buruburu Institute of Fine Arts in Nairobi. Samson has a long history with Ewaso Lions. He was one of the first students we ever sponsored. Under our scholarship, he completed four years of secondary school and graduated from Wamba Boys School. Samson is a gifted artist, and we encouraged him to develop his talents. He contributed amazing sketches of lions for our book Simba Stories. Now, Ewaso Lions is supporting his college tuition and we have high hopes that Samson will continue to grow and thrive.
Ewaso Lions would like to thank our amazing donors who support our scholarships and Education Program. If you would like to get involved, please contact us.
