Tenikwa Wildlife Awareness Centre encourages members of our local disadvantaged communities to come through the centre and learn about South African wildlife and our environment.  We often find that even transport to get to the centre is unaffordable.  We are raising funds to purchase a vehicle to collect children from disadvantaged communities to bring them to Tenikwa to teach them about the animals and what is happening to their habitat.  When we started our Rehabilitation Centre, we realized that through rehabilitation, we can make a difference to the lives of individual animals, and certainly in the penguin case, a difference to the species, but through education and awareness, we really have the ability to impact on a much greater scale, and we have focused much of our efforts in the last two years on this area.

All children and members of disadvantaged communities are welcomed at Tenikwa free of charge, but the single biggest barrier remains the cost of transporting the children to Tenikwa.  At Tenikwa, as part of the Awareness Program, we take the children into the natural habitat of the animal, to make the connection between the survival of the animal and the preservation of natural habitat, and therefore it is important to bring the people to Tenikwa as it has far greater impact than doing a talk in a school room, for example.

Whilst the purchase of a vehicle for awareness purposes may be beyond the scope of animal rehabilitation, there is a definite correlation between raising awareness, improving tolerance towards wild animals in situations of animal/wildlife conflict  and a reduction in the amount of rehabilitation to do.

A Breakdown of costs as follows:

• Purchase of Toyota Quantum 14 seater  R318,000
• Branding and vehicle wrap    R  15,000
• Total: R330,000

Rough estimates have been used for budgetary purposes but once this project gets approval and sponsorship, we will obtain quotations for all similar vehicles.