Giving back to the community

Author(s)

Nancy Odweyo, Assistant Conservation Education Officer

Date Published

Elephant Scholar, Martin Duncan together with his fellow scholar, Melissa are at a local primary school in Samburu where they are helping ease the workload of the understaffed school, where the average teacher student ratio is 1:70. Duncan and Melissa sat their national exams in 2016 under the auspices of Save the Elephants. Both are now part of the growing number of graduates who have benefited from the Elephant Scholarship Programme across four counties in the North.

The scope of our scholarship programme goes beyond providing education opportunities to children who share the landscape with elephants. We help mentor and steer students towards becoming responsible and productive members of society.

With this in mind, the programme encourages high school graduates to participate in post-secondary internships where they civically engage and become part of a positive force within their community. For ‘teacher’ Duncan and ‘teacher’ Melissa, interacting with learners and professional educators is helping them hone their inter-personal and professional skills; qualities that will come in handy in higher education institutions and the increasingly competitive job market. We use such platforms to encourage our scholars to nudge, lift and motivate children in their home area to follow into their footsteps.