Course Outline

We encourage you to spend at least 4 weeks with Askari to get the most out of your experience. Longer stays (up to 6 months) are very welcome but the minimum period is 2 weeks. For those staying more than 4 weeks, orientation will include an introduction to important bush skills such as first aid, 4x4 driving, fence maintenance, rifle shooting etc. You will be introduced to research and monitoring programmes and learn the various techniques for recording and capturing data.
A typical day starts around 6.00 am with a morning work session perhaps removing alien plants, repairing an eroded site or removing bush encroachment. After a mid morning breakfast the team heads out again, this time maybe to track cheetah or brown hyaena with the radio telemetry equipment. After lunch the team departs on another activity such as an herbivore age and sex ratio research drive.

Volunteers also take it in turns to carry out various duties on a daily basis at Askari. These include meal preparation, data collection, vehicle checks and fence checks. All ingredients are provided for cooking along with easy to follow recipes so don’t worry if you’re not a master chef!

Depending on the season, events such as prescribed burns and game capture and release take place. Both emergency and planned veterinary dartings also occur and volunteers are involved in all of these if they coincide with the period of their stay.

Our activities are not only essential but also aimed at being educational, inspirational and fun. We are proud that we are valuable participants in the running of an active wilderness reserve.

“At Pidwa, wilderness is not merely a marketing tool; for us it is a way of life.” (The Askari Team)