bespoke education

It was my absolute honour to work with the inspirational team at GRACE | Gorilla Rehabilitation and Conservation Education Center to produce an impactful conservation education booklet focused on gorilla conservation.

Located in Democratic Republic of Congo GRACE is the world’s only sanctuary for rescued Grauer’s gorillas. GRACE nurses orphaned gorillas back to health, giving them a chance to be with other gorillas again. The ultimate goal is to reintroduce them back into the wild.  The GRACE team also works with local communities on conservation education, forest protection, and sustainable livelihoods to help secure a future for Grauer’s gorillas, fostering a peaceful coexistence between humans and gorillas.

This bespoke education design project is part of GRACE’s strategic priority for conservation education – promoting understanding, appreciation, and conservation action for gorillas through education programs targeting both youth and adults.

Our ‘Be and EARTH Hero‘ concept was the brainchild of the talented GRACE education team based in DR Congo. I had the best time creating content to bring this brilliant concept come to life. It was a joy working with the phenomenal graphic designer, Stephanie de Wit, again. We have collaborated previously on the wonderful wildlife booklets for the Blue Sky Society and the storyboard for Koru Camp. This has certainly been one of the most rewarding bespoke education design projects to date.

Koru Camp is all about empowering wildlife communities in the Greater Kruger area of South Africa – connecting local communities with their natural heritage and fostering a love for the environment.  They offer transformative experiences for individuals from disadvantaged communities, providing immersive nature experiences, conservation education, and practical skills for sustainable living.

I was thrilled to be asked by Koru Camp’s ‘originator of awesomeness’, Peter Eastwood, to create a storyboard they could use as part of their conservation education programme. The brief was simple, it had to have a folklore element, it had to have a wildlife science connection relevant to Koru Camp’s surroundings and it had to have a human connection – a call to action that was achievable for camp participants.

In many parts of Africa children growing up in communities that border wildlife areas have limited access to conservation education resources. While closest in proximity to wildlife and wild spaces, their experience of human-wildlife conflict and pressure to poach often leaves these children with a very different perspective compared with visiting tourists.

The key to breaking down barriers to conservation is Education. Empowering communities with the message that their natural heritage has value and needs their protection. As a result, these communities will see the long term benefits of sustainable use of their environment.

The Blue Sky Society Trust, a non-profit conservation and humanitarian organisation based in South Africa, has collaborated with a number of groups over the past few years to develop, print and distribute Wonderful Wildlife Booklets to children in rural communities adjacent to wildlife areas from South Africa to Kenya.

This successful project continues in 2021 and I was thrilled and honoured to develop the content for this year’s edition. This edition is available in English, Zulu, Portuguese and soon Tsonga.

We continue to look for collaborators to help us further the translation potential and further the distribution of this vital conservation education work. If you want to be part of the solution you can find out more here:

Project BSST01 Wildlife Education Booklet

If you would like to take a closer look at the content of the Wonderful Wildlife Booklet 2021, you can download a watermarked copy.

Your Place in the World is the original concept I had three years ago that ultimately sparked the creation of Pure Spaces Education and all the content you see here on the website.

The Your Place in the World concept is a Wellbeing programme using themed Story to inspire and practice Self-reflection. The programme is aimed at inspiring and empowering secondary school-aged learners to develop self-efficacy. My theory is that a strong sense of self-efficacy would lead to pro-environmental behaviours.

For more detail on the Your Place in the World concept, download the detailed Theory of Change document.

And for a look at the content of the Your Place in the World programme in its current workbook form, download the watermarked pdf.

I believe the Your Place in the World programme has value and is flexible enough in its design to work in a number of formats and settings.

To find out how the Your Place in the World concept could work for you and your learners, please get in touch.