The women among men
Staff Writer | Monday October 5, 2015 11:22
Moeng, who is based in the Chobe national park’s Chobe Game Lodge, has five years of experience in boat and game drives in the Chobe.
She relocated from her home village of Molepolole many years ago to pursue a course in the hospitality industry offered by the Wildlife Department in Maun.
Her aim is to manage a hospitality outfit, or even managing a facility of her own. She describes herself as someone with passion for conservation.
Moeng says the field guide program offered by the Amarula Trust is popular at her work place, where four employees have already enrolled for it.
“You get even more knowledgeable, and helpful to tourists as you lead them in field guides; at my work place they recommended this course to enable me to upgrade my skills; we believe that we should continue to refresh our knowledge, and this particular program is very challenging”.
“I feel so far I have absorbed quite a lot of vital information; I have observed from my workplace that all those work-mates who came for this program had become more knowledgeable in new areas such as geology, astronomy, among others”, commented Moeng.
Another female, Grace says she was meeting this program for the very first time. She says she had done mobile safaris before.“ I did not know names of common birds, but I spent a great amount of time before coming here, reading and learning about the various birds species”.
Grace says for her the whole purpose is to absorb the message of conservation and not so much for profit.
She is studying in Mashatu for two months. The training programme also funded by Con-Safari-T takes her to South Africa.
She says she found advertisement about the Amarula Trust field guide program, and approached a local foundation, Con-safari-T of Theda Graffins for funding.
Her aim is to use her skills in Maun and other northern parts of Botswana, as a nature guide.