Most conservation efforts focus on wildlife, not local communities. Elephant Havens is different. We are working to build healthy communities by implementing infrastructure initiatives such as fresh-water wells and school building improvements, and responding to other needs of the local population. Elephant Havens is also assisting with practical, affordable, and effective ways for people and wildlife to share the environment with fewer conflicts.
Our educational outreach programs have brought scores of adults and young children to visit and learn about elephants and their behavior by having a close-up experience with these smaller elephants. By educating children and local youths about conservation we hope to instill in them a sense of responsibility for the wildlife around them.
Through community awareness programs, we are reaching out to farmers and villagers to help them understand the long-term benefits of conservation. We are also working with them to find solutions to their specific elephant conflicts with the goal of sharing their habitat in harmony.
The locals who staff the orphanage as handlers, support, and administrative personnel are seeing a direct benefit of elephant conservation. Rather than being a threat to crops, livestock, and people, the elephants can be seen in a positive light, with the potential to drive income through jobs in the wildlife and tourism areas.
Elephant Havens Community Projects
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- Educating the next generation of conservationists with summer Kids’ Camp.
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- Driving growing numbers of students through wildlife corridors to two local schools, eight trips each day in two school buses donated by supporters.
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- Three freshwater wells now provide clean, safe drinking water to local communities.
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- Establishing the first computer lab at Shorobe primary school with laptops donated by our supporters.
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- Relocating bats and cleaning guano to create healthy classrooms.
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- Distributing hundreds of wheelchairs to locals in need. Donated by The Wheelchair Project.
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- Crafting paper journals and stationery out of our donated elephant dung to sell locally provides income.
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- Goats in exchange for milk for our elephants and the ability to sell their excess for profit.
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- Providing food to 50+ needy families during Covid Quarantine in 2020.
Double your impact.
If your company matches employee donations, your gift can go twice as far to help our young elephants. We can supply any needed documentation. See our FAQs page for details. Every donation helps us rescue and save more orphaned elephants.
DOUBLE YOUR GIFT NOW
We are working to protect and preserve important portions of land on the boundaries of the Okavango Delta. The world’s largest delta, this magnificent UNESCO World Heritage Site includes both permanent water from the Okavango River and seasonal wetlands that are created when the river floods the semi-arid Kalahari Basin savannah. This results in a unique region of biodiversity among plants and animals.
By acquiring and fencing adjacent lands, we are able to secure wildlife areas and reduce human-wildlife conflict in these delta woodlands, wetlands and grasslands. In return, we are providing jobs and drilling water wells for the nearby communities.
One of our protected reserve areas serves as a soft release site for young elephants who have graduated from the orphanage. Here, they will live independently until mature enough to be truly rewilded. These 1,000 acres are secured from human encroachment by nearly 5 miles of electric fencing to preserve riverine woodlands, seasonal wetlands, mopane and terminalia forests and acacia plains for an assortment of delta wildlife and these young elephants.
The orphanage itself, where the youngest elephants roam daily, also serves to preserve additional delta habitat from overgrazing and cultivation. Triple the size of the original footprint, we now have room to rotate the babies to new foraging areas and allow some over-grazed sections to recover.
Because we are located in seasonal wetlands comprised of the same unique bio-systems in the nearby Okavango World Heritage Site, we are always working to procure and protect additional habitat lands. We also seek public and private partnerships to extend the reach of these habitat preservation initiatives.
