Northern Great Plains: Black-Footed Ferret Is Making A Comeback

The black-footed ferret is making a comeback. But we still have a long way to go!

In the last 30 years, this sweet little animal has come back from an assumed extinction to a population in the 300s. Conservationists have worked diligently to protect and support these little creatures in the Northern Great Plains region of the United States. Sadly, this fight is not over yet. The black-footed ferret is still one of the most endangered mammals in North America.

WorldWomenWork is supporting this recovery effort through the World Wildlife Fund's (WWF) Northern Great Plains Project, which focuses on ferret repopulation through engaging local ranching communities, public agencies, and tribal nations to ensure that the richness of the prairie ecosystem is sustained for future generations.

Through the WWF, WorldWomenWork specifically provides funds for identifying and establishing new ferret reintroduction sites, providing maintenance to existing ferret populations, and supporting disease prevention. Protection from the plague and ample reintroduction sites remain the largest obstacles to ferret recovery.

As you may know, I am a member of the volunteer advisory committee at WWF’s Northern Great Plains program “the Serengeti of North America”. WorldWomenWork has been supporting the efforts in this region focused primarily on local tribal women in conservation, bison rangelands, and black-footed ferret recovery. Our advisory committee has collectively created a matching gift challenge that WorldWomenWork is honored to be part of to help leverage the impact of gifts to this important work.

Grevy's Zebra Update

There are less than 2,500 Grevy's Zebras left in the world.
The Grevy's Zebra Trust needs our help!

The Grevy's Zebra Trust has been monitoring herds and conserving habitats through partnerships within communities in the northern Kenya region since 2007. 

In 2015, the Grevy's Zebra program was able to to reduce poaching incidents in El Barta by 60% through engaging communities that live off of wildlife and providing them alternative income through conservation. In 2009, the proportion of foals and juveniles among the population increased from 12-21%, and remains at this level today.

The Grevy's Zebra Trust is doing amazing work, and we are so proud to be a partner in these projects. We all need to protect these magnificent creatures before it is too late.

WorldWomenWork's supports the Grevy's Zebra Trust through funding 5 educational scholarships that send local Samburu girls to secondary school. We also provide the salaries of 5 scouts that track and monitor the zebra herds. WorldWomenWork also provides the full funding for the Nkirreten Project. 

The Nkirreten project is a program that trains women to fabricate and sell reusable sanitary pads. This program not only provides a less expensive hygeine product for local women so they can continue with their everyday lives during menses, but it also gives local women an alternative income source through the sales of the pads. As a bonus, this project promotes environmentally friendly consumption.

At WorldWomenWork, we believe that the way to protect endangered species and conserve the natural world is through empowering local women. By providing educational opportunities and environmental training, we are preparing a new generation of leaders to protect our world.

In 2015, the Grevy's Zebra trust trained a total of 685 women, 591 elders, 491 warriors and 31 local leaders to improve environmental stewardship. Just imagine how much more they can do with your help. 

Your support of this program in 2017 will be able to provide the salaries of more scouts to protect the endangered Grevy's Zebra and more educational opportunities for girls and women. 

Thank you for all that you do. 

The Mama Simba Are Inspiring The World

Powerful Women Providing Opportunities
The Mama Simba Are Inspiring The World

As the sole sponsor of this program run by the Ewaso Lions in Kenya, We are so proud that the Mama Simba are able to do truly amazing things with our funding. Since 2013, this organization has engaged women all over northern Kenya in educational programs, environmental campaigns, and lion conservation. This year, the Mama Simba expanded their educational program from class instruction one day a week to four days a week. The ladies even built their own school equipped with blackboards, pens and all the books they need.

In 2017, in addition to training women to create beaded crafts, the Mama Simba are planning to start a new recycling program that will teach the women how to make new products out of recyclable materials. The project is based on an initiative started by the Zingira in western Kenya. You can read about our Mama Simba coordinator's experience at a product development workshop with the Zingira in this blog post. We will also give funding to send a prospective teacher to college, purchase a new safari vehicle and to send another teacher to driving school. 

If all of these efforts go as planned, the Mama Simba have proposed to organize an official training center, where women from around the region can come to learn from the Mama Simba.

It is not just WorldWomenWork who gushes over these women, the BBC just published an article in August that highlights the Mama Simba program. Read it here.

Save The Elephants: The Elephant Orphan Project Update

What happens to the herd when all the big tuskers are gone?
Save The Elephants is going to find out.

We are in a crisis. Almost all of the big tuskers are gone from surges in poaching across Africa. The price of ivory has fueled the widespread killing of elephants. There are now only approximately 30 of the great tuskers left. 

Now, these animals are dealing with a new problem. Without the matriarchs to lead the heard, the orphaned elephants do not know where to go. These herds are now wandering into new areas at risk of encountering dangerous habitats. The Orphan Project by Save the Elephants helps to understand the orphaned elephant's migratory patterns as they expand their ranges into uncharted territory. Over the past three years, WorldWomenWork has donated over $300,000 to this project for radio collars, vehicles, and staffing.

This monitoring will be increasingly important for ensuring the saftey of the herds during the Kenyan government's Vision 2030 development plan that will build road, rail and pipline links through both East-West and North-South in the Lamu Port, South Sudan, and Ethiopian Transport Corridor (LAPSSET). The Orphan Project's monitoring system will ensure that any development is created with access for migrating wildlife. 

We anticipate to give another $100,000 in 2017 for additional tracking collar deployments, collar replacements, aerial patrol, monitoring time, and GIS (Geographic Information System) analysis of movements. This data will be crutial to ensuring the future of these elephant herds across the African savannahs. 

WorldWomenWork has been fortunate to fund the work of Shifra Goldenberg and Dr. George Wittemyer through Save the Elephants. They have been researching the orphan's new migratory patterns and social behaviors in the Samburu National Reserve. Their work has been highlighted recently in the New York Times and National Geographic. 

In this video by National Geographic, Shifra explains more about social bonds between elephants and their behavior when finding an elephant who has died. 

This program is completely funded by generous donors like you. We are almost at the end of our 2016 fund drive, and need your support now more than ever. 

A Second Chance for Kabu

A second chance for Kabu
It's been a year since her rescue, and you will not believe the difference a little love can make. 

“With a weeks worth of preparations and 2 days spent searching the jungle we were able to rescue Kabu the elephant. It was a 24 hour round trip to bring Kabu from Tak province in West Thailand to Elephant Nature Park, Chiang Mai. Now Kabu has a fresh start where she will no longer be abused. We and volunteers are very proud of this rescued elephant and honored to provide her with a new life.”

Last year, Lek Chailert and her team from the Elephant Nature Park rescued Kabu from her life of logging in the hills of Thailand.

When Kabu was small, she broke her left front leg in an accident. Because of the heavy work required of an elephant, the leg was never allowed to heal properly. Despite her injury, she was still forced to work, haul logs, and carry people.

Now that Kabu is free to roam and play at the Elephant Nature Park, she is thriving! You can see the difference in her spirit in the video and images below.

You have given Kabu this second chance through your generous support. Just imagine how we can impact the lives of other animals in need. Even the smallest changes can make a big difference.

Kabu before her rescue

Kabu before her rescue

Kabu before her rescue

Kabu
Enjoying her new life at the Elephant Nature Park

Photography & Videography by Elephant Nature Park. 

Elephant Nature Park is an elephant rescue and rehabilitation center in Northern Thailand where you can volunteer and visit to help. We have been involved in dozens of rescues which have created our thriving elephant herd. The park provides a natural environment for elephants, dogs, cats, buffaloes and many other animals under our care.

Save The Elephants Scholarships, Northern Kenya Girls Win

Edina Dararo and Flavia Mwena come from poor villages in northern Kenya, where they face lives of considerable hardship. Flavia’s parents both died of AIDS-related illness, leaving her in the care of her grandmother. Edina’s family is destitute, having lost most of their livestock to severe drought. Thanks to WorldWomenWork’s support of a scholarship fund created by Save the Elephants and Elephant Watch Safaris, these promising young women are able to attend secondary school.

Singer has leveraged a close personal relationship with powerhouse Oria Douglas-Hamilton to achieve such targeted assistance. Not only are the girls receiving a quality education but also hands-on training in environmental awareness and elephant conservation. Students are encouraged to become cultural ambassadors, and graduates of the program are now involved in conservation and Eco-tourism.

New Cubs and the Mama Simba

Nothing can stop the Mama Simba

Reading, writing and the conservation of lions in Kenya 

We are so inspired by the Mama Simba's hard work and dedication. This year, the "Mothers of Lions" have added 9 new members to their group, bringing their numbers from 10 to 19. In exchange for weekly educational classes, the Mama Simba have been a watch group for lion sightings and conflict issues. The group's support of conservational issues has allowed for a safe environment for the local lion population as well as the opportunity for increased income for the women participating.

Outreach programs like the Mama Simba and the Warriors founded by the Ewaso Lions, have had a positive impact on the lion population around the Samburu National Reserve. In December 2015 alone, the teams have stopped retaliatory lion killings 26 times. The goal is to transform human conflict with Lions into coexistence. This is done through the Ewaso Warriors & Mama Simba programs that promote prevention of conflict through tracking and reporting lion behavior.

It isn't just the adults that get to have all the fun. The group has held two Lion Kids Camps with a total of 122 Kenyan children learning and practicing conservation. The next generation of lion keepers are being made, and it is beautiful.

Now for the adorable news, new cubs have been found in the study area. They are the most amazing creatures. Jeneria, who found the cubs, had this reaction, "Because of the excitement, I almost threw my camera. I was shaking all over and it took me so long to take the first photo".

Thank you for continuing to inspire us with your love for conservation and support of women around the world.

We love this story! Within a week of the Lion Kids Camp, we heard that Zawadi, one of the young herding children who attended the camp, spoke to some warriors in her village and said "Do not go after the lions and hurt them. If you do, you will have to answer to me." The warrior spoke back and said "who are you to tell me what to do Zawadi? to which she replied, “I am the one who will teach you about lions."

Zawadi (pictured right in the photo) is the daughter of Mparasaroi (on the left), the leader of our Mama Simba programme. "We can see that Zawadi is becoming just like her mother - a real lion spokesperson!" From The Ewaso Lions Facebook Page

Should Gorillas Be Held Captive?

Questioning Captivity: Should animals be removed from nature for our enjoyment?

The death of Harambe has ignited a long-overdue debate around the ethics of captivating animals. This New York Times article captures our feelings best in this quote from primatologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy.

“When I visit zoos, I have to turn off my feelings and just tell myself that I am at a museum admiring nature’s masterpieces, otherwise, I can’t really justify keeping great apes in cages.”

— Sarah Blaffer Hrdy

When will we, as a species, realize that sometimes our cultural standards are damaging for other sentient creatures? At what point will we shrug off these accepted practices for the sake of morality.

The accepted actions of the past should not dictate how we want to live in the future. We need to question every action and practice. We need to have accountability to this planet and to every species on it.

Animals do not belong in cages.

WorldWomenWork Adventures: Our trip to Kenya and Rwanda

Safari in Kenya, Trek in Rwanda, Camp in Luxury

Our WorldWomenWork explorers took to the plains and jungles of Africa this February in search of adventure. What they found, besides the captivating landscape, spectacular people, and the majestic wildlife, was an unforgettable experience engrossed in the raw abundance of nature. Enjoy these memories with us! 

WorldWomenWork Adventure Trips are organized every year, as an educational as well as fundraising initiative. A portion of the trip fees go directly to the projects that we support. Read more about these projects on in our News and Projects pages. If you would like to be the first to know about our next trips, sign up for our mailing list. Thank you!

The Grevy's Zebra Trust

The Grevy’s Zebra Trust helps conserve the endangered Grevy’s Zebra and their fragile habitat. It is estimated that there are only 2,000 Grevy’s Zebras left.

WorldWomenWork helps support the Trust and director Belinda Mackey by employing underserved women from communities that share the zebra’s land. WorldWomenWork provides the salaries for thirteen scouts who monitor the zebras and collect critical data for understanding the animals and their plight. In 2012, scholarships were provided for five young women to begin a secondary education. These young students are a rarity in these communities where girls almost never have an opportunity for a high school education. Students and their greater community also witness firsthand that preserving an endangered species brings great benefits.

Did you know that for only $7 you can provide one woman with enough reusable sanitary pads for one year? Well, you can through the Grevy’s Zebra Trust Sanitary Pad Project.

The goal of this program is to empower women through the production and marketing of reusable sanitary pads. The Grevy’s Zebra Scout ladies are trained in the fabrication of the pads, and they in turn sell them to their peers and community members. In April 2015, 29 women and 10 men participated in training workshops to make the sanitary pads.

By providing women with accessibility to feminine hygiene products, we are giving them freedom over their biology. This program will enable girls and women to improve their personal hygiene and health, as well as providing school-going girls with the confidence to continue classes during their menstrual cycle.

In order for the conservation of the Grevy’s Zebra to be successful, it is important for the community to thrive. This program provides yet another avenue for alternative income for women of the community. By investing in the improvement of the livelihoods of these women, we strengthen the connection between the community and the Grevy’s Zebra.

In 2015, WorldWomenWork funded this program through the generosity of our donors.