2016 - An overview of the year

Helping learners from underprivileged communities understand conservation

Visits to the centre

Learners from an informal settlement viewing wild dogs 

All smiles after the tour 

 2016 was a great year for our education team, with learners from underprivileged communities and orphanages getting the opportunity to visit the centre. Children from an informal settlement near Hartbeespoortdam were treated to a day visit to the Ann van Dyk Cheetah centre as the CHEETA team took them on a fun tour. On the tour, they saw cheetahs, wild dogs, vultures, suricats, servals, caracals and even spotted hyenas. The highlight was meeting our ambassador cheetah named Yeats. We also hosted a group of partially sighted learners from a school from Limpopo province. A sensory trail offered the learners an opportunity to smell, taste and feel some of the beauty that we all take for granted as sighted individuals. Of course, meeting Yeats, feeling and hearing his magnificent purr, and even getting a sense of the size of a cheetah is something these teenagers will never forget. 

Offsight visits

Underprivileged school learners getting
information about endangered animals

Yeats and the CHEETA team also traveled     to an underprivileged school in the     community of Ga-Rankuwa. After an           extensive presentation about cheetahs social behaviour and anatomy, as well as information about various environmental concerns South Africa is facing, the learners got the opportunity to meet the gorgeous Yeats. Although they were a little apprehensive at first, after touching him, Yeats and the team won over a few classes of little conservationists. 

Learners meeting Yeats

These types of visits are only possible due to support from generous sponsors, and visitors to the centre, if you would like to assist in making any donations towards visits for underprivileged learners coming to the centre, or our team visiting a community, you can do so directly on GivenGain or JustGiving or contact us for more information.

 

Fun times at the Ester Stewart Tented Camp

The Ester Stewart Tented Camp is one of the most exciting offerings that CHEETA has at the moment. A 16 sleeper campsite, as well as a vehicle for transporting underprivileged learner was generously sponsored by the Ester Stewart Trust to ensure that our education team could allow children of all socio-economic situations to be able to experience the beauty that the Magaliesburg biosphere and the Ann van dyk Cheetah Centre offers. During 2016, we hosted 2 orphanages for weekend stays, as well as a fantastic opportunity to bring learners from Diepsloot, Lonehill and Orange Farm together to learn from each others cultural and home lives, while enjoying the enviromental education at the centre. These children were even fortunate enough to bump into our founder, Ann van Dyk, and were given words of encouragement to protect our wildlife heritage. 

We also hosted the wonderful team from the Wot-If? Trust for their year-end function, and the ladies enjoyed the rustic setting very much, with customised conferencing, meals as well as a private tour. Of course no stay at the camp would be complete without meeting Yeats, and he was a graceful as ever.

The tented camp is also a fantastic venue for leadership camps, Scout and Voortrekker groups, or even self catering getaways. Contact us for any booking enquiries. education@dewildt.co.za 

Children meeting our founder, Ann van Dyk

Tented camp Girls vs. Boys Potjiekos competition
 at the tented camp

 Holiday programme fun in December

Meeting Timone, our cutie pie meerkat

During December, we had a lovely group of youngsters that spent 3 days in our tented camp, and learning about conservation while having fun. Activities including tours of the centre, meeting our ambassador animals, learning about tracking and making spoor casts, and lots of fun in the swimming pool. The evenings were spent playing board games, learning about sounds of the bush and story telling around the campfire while toasting marshmallows. We are not sure who enjoyed it more - our education team or the youngsters. 

The stunning Egyptian Vulture, Sagira

The holiday programme is held every school holiday, provided we have enough participants. Book early to ensure a spot.

Fun times on the "prey-ground"

Time for cleaning up

School tours and offsite bookings

With so many choices, CHEETA has an offering for your school, eco-club, scouts and voortrekker meetings or just for fun. We can give talks at venues in Gauteng, North-West and Limpopo provinces on Cheetahs, Wild dogs, Vultures or even introduce learners to domestic animals. Our ambassador animals are always ready for some cuddles and an outing. Yeats the cheetah, Sagira the egyptian vulture and Jedi the anatolion dog are well trained and travel with our team.

At the centre, we have game drives, walking tours, education games and much more. 

Please contact Rita on education@dewildt.co.za for equiries.

We wish all our supporters and followers a fantastic 2017.