Each year Sunway Safaris runs a number of safaris to the national parks of South Africa for underprivileged children. Our aim is to raise the young adult’s awareness and basic understanding and respect for the natural environment. We also want to show them prospects for their future employment in conservation or the tourism industry.

 

PEN dreams of igniting change, healing communities and nurturing togetherness. While at Sunway we focus on the youth of our country, the dedicated team that works at PEN works with the whole community which includes children, teens, elderly, parents, students, homeless people, sex workers, drug addicts and every person that crosses their path. Their work covers education and access technology, health and emotional well-being, community support and citizen rights, enterprise coaching and skills development, creative arts, music and recreation as well as supportive housing and mission support. www.pen.org.za
On the 12 January 2018 4 guides from Sunway Safaris in 2 of our trucks left the office. Cloud one of the guides had this to share of the experience.

It was a beautiful day, clear sky with no clouds. at around 07.00 am we headed to Pretoria to an orphanage centre called Pen, to collect our guests for the weekend. We met the 4 care takers and 20 children. We introduced ourselves and the company to the care takers before we addressed it to the children and this took us 30 minutes before we embarked on our journey to Pilanesberg Game Reserve. We drove out of Pretoria towards the northwest province and the Pilanesberg.
The area you drive through is a Platinum mining area which is scattered with mines. It was important to see this because one of the children asked about the place in terms of its development. Furthermore before we headed to Bagatla gate we were stopped on the road for about 30 minutes because there where road works going on, after we got through we drove about 4km and stopped at Caltex garage for their toilet after the short stop we drove to the gate for check in, unpacked the truck and two of us showed the children how to pitch their tents while the other two prepared lunch. While I was showing them to put up their tents I remember one of the children asked me “this is a very hard job, do you like your job?” I replied “if you like what you do, you won’t feel or see any challenge from it” because to them it was challenging.

 
Soon after we finished with the tents lunch was ready prepared by the other guides which was chicken salad meal, the children loved it ,after lunch we gave them time to relax and go swimming, the care takers went swimming with them to ensure their safety while swimming. At 15.00pm we met again for 30 minutes. I welcomed them and started a talk about our agenda and the importance of listening on tour. I requested them to let us know what they understood about tourism. We listened to what a few of the children had to say and then explained in detail more about the importance of it, their benefit from it as young generation and why we as a nation should protect and preserve it. After the discussion we headed to the trucks and out on our afternoon game drive. We entered the park for the first time and we saw Rhino, Lion, Elephants and plenty general game (antelope)… This was a breath taking moment to some of the children because seeing the Rhino and Lions so close the truck was a first for all of them as none had ever experienced a game reserve before. Already the trip was a great success in our and their eyes. They learnt a lot about the names of other animals, their daily activity, which rank do they fall under in an ecosystem and the types of habitat which these animals are endemic to.

 
After game drive we made dinner which was a braai at around 19.00pm then we had individual talks about ourselves, our job and our life. Early the next morning we had our breakfast at 05.30 and by 06.00 we started our morning game drive, we didn’t see as much as the afternoon but we all enjoyed it, being out in the bush is truly special especially for first timers. After the game drive we headed back to camp and had the pleasure of meeting Aubrey who gave all of us a really interesting chat about life. Initially he began with how he progressed in his life working at the camp we were staying at, the choices which he had to make, good and bad friendships he had along the way. The children engaged with him by asking a lot of questions .The talk took around 45 minutes and from my point of view this was my highlight of the tour because I also learnt a lot in general about life, he also spoke about what must you do to have the qualities of success, integrity, persevere and focus, his speech gave a foundation of success in life.

  

After Aubrey’s talk we started with our brunch which was mince and eggs. After brunch we gave everybody some free time until 15.00. During this free time the majority of the children went swimming. At 15.00 we headed out on the afternoon game drive, we drove into the park to the animal centre where we met the ecologist by the name of Steven. Steven was also a good educator, he gave us a great talk and explained the importance of nature, the endangered species, pollution, the Rhino poaching issue, importance of insects, how to fit into nature as humans and what we can do we preserve and protect it. He also mentioned about the biodiversity which we have in our country and the prominent features of our country, the children said the most interesting part of his talk was on the Rhinos being poached and how it is affecting Southern Africa.

  

After Steven’s speech we drove around the searching for animals until we had to be out of the park. We got back to camp and the children had a short time to refresh before dinner. Dinner was at 19.30 and consisted of a chicken stew with rice. The following morning breakfast was at the same time 05.30am and shortly after breakfast we headed out on our last game drive. After game drive we headed to our camp and made brunch, wors and rolls. We cleaned up and packed away the tents, packed our trucks. We had a final chat to the group to show our gratitude and appreciation to them on behalf of Sunway Safaris and hit the road back to Pretoria.

As guides we would like to thank Bruce and Shaun who made everything possible and gave us an opportunity to go out there and convey the awareness of tourism and nature to the children, the future generation of South Africa. Who know we might just have some of the children that attended our weekend in the Pilanesberg becoming the next big name in the tourism or hospitality industry.