How we miss sharing our passion for the African wild with you on a face to face basis, along with exploring the community, and conservation projects we are involved with.You may be wondering what has been happening with our staff as well as our conservation and community initiatives since the pandemic. Well, believe it or not, it has now been nearly 15 months since that strange week in March 2020 when the world came to a standstill. The initial challenge of rushing guests back home and pulling up the emergency brake on all our operations was a sign of what was to come. Since then, we have navigated waves of uncertainty, multiple changes in travel restrictions, an everchanging public perception of travel during a pandemic, stop-start flight schedules and of course the real threat of a dangerous virus.
The one constant has been the economic and social knock-on effects of the pandemic. In countries like Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, where hand-to-mouth economics pay the bills and every single tourist’s payment trickle through to remote villages outside National Parks and Game Reserves, these effects have perhaps been felt even harder. And the ripple effects may be felt for a long time to come. Our story is not unique. Our story is by no means the worst story to come out of pandemic.
Pre March 2020 our support to conservation and local communities included funding animal relocations, conservation patrols/work, uplifting various community initiatives, and sponsoring school fees in addition to the livelihoods of team and their extended families. The various initiatives thrived due to the $10 per bed night we allocate to these projects from all our properties and the many generous donations we got from guests who came through to us. During the pandemic, however, we have had to restrict the lending hand closer to home due to the restricted sources.
For our team, a decision was made early on to keep as many of our staff employed as we could; a gesture of loyalty towards many of our team who have been part of the RPS family for decades. We have continued paying partial salaries to staff during this time, regardless of them not being needed in the camps and lodges. Over the course of the pandemic, we have made several tons of food parcels available to our staff and their families. This goes a long way as most of our team our breadwinners to not only their immediate families but extended family too.
At Pumulani we have continued paying for school fees for 12 high school students from the area. Two of these students finished school last year with flying colours and are currently receiving training at Pumulani.
We support Conservation South Luangwa (CSL) with much needed anti-poaching patrols with vehicles and drivers. Our staff are paid a small amount per outing to patrol our area looking for illegal activities, collect litter and remove snares and anything else that will affect wildlife and nature. The same set up is used for community drives, which are funded by CSL. The community are taken into the park free of charge to help sensitise them and encourage conservation.
In order to help our more junior team members, in partnership with Robin & Jo Pope, we have a loan scheme to pay school fees for their children. This has enabled several children each year to be able to continue with their studies. This makes life a lot easier for our staff and will help ease the schooling burden.
Safari Dreaming Campaign
We launched a #SafariDreaming e-book along with a calendar, with the aim of raising funds to continue supporting the various conservation and community projects we are involved with. Thank you for your support with these as every single cent has gone a long way to assist.
Connecting with you
We will continue to inspire and entertain you by sharing stories from the bush in our weekly ‘It’s Monday’ newsletters as well as taking you on a virtual trip into the wilderness with our 1-minute ‘Safari Diaries’ videos.
Future stays with us
We try as best as we can to keep these initiatives up. Now that vaccination campaigns are underway and the world seems to be opening up more and more, we hope that we can give you, our guests, a wonderful safari experience soon. This will naturally see to it that we continue to help our staff, the communities we operate in and conserve the pristine wildernesses.
