PHOTO OPPORTUNITY

An initiative in South Africa is using cameras to nurture the conservationists of tomorrow

- SARAH MCPHERSON

"I never could have imagined this is how my life could turn out,” says Melody Mnisi. “Now it’s my dream to introduce young people to nature and to inspire young African women like me to believe anything is possible.”

Melody is a 23-year-old South African and has just qualified as a field guide. Despite growing up very close to Kruger National Park – a world-renowned safari destination – she never had the chance to see or enjoy its wildlife. “This was something for white people, not poor black people like me,” she says. “I always wondered what was on the other side of the fence.”

But everything changed for Melody when she completed a Wild Shots Outreach (WSO) photography course, learning how to use a camera and going on her first-ever game drive. “I could not believe my eyes, seeing all this wildlife and capturing my memories and stories,” she says. “It was such a privilege to be in nature.”

WSO is the educational outreach arm of Wild Shots, a photography conference in Africa that ran for nine years prior to 2020. Its aim is to engage disadvantaged young Africans in wildlife and conservation through photography and by providing an introduction to the natural world, helping to nurture the conservationists of tomorrow.

The initiative came about in 2015 and was the passion project of Mike Kendrick, a life-sciences teacher and photographer. Moving to the Greater Kruger area to live in the bush, Mike was dismayed to see the lack of engagement between young South Africans and their natural environment. Not only that, in six years of helping to run Wild Shots, he had not come across a single wildlife, landscape or outdoors photographer of colour in South Africa.

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