Partners of African Impact

African Impact is proud to have been instrumental in the establishment of The Happy Africa Foundation (UK Registered Charity Number: 1123529) in 2007 and continues to be one of the Foundations major supporters.

Donations made to support our community and conservation initiatives by private donors as well as by African Impact as a voluntourism organisation are managed and distributed on our behalf by The Happy Africa Foundation.

The Foundation works together with local African communities to conserve and protect the environment, wildlife and cultures in areas where the Foundation is involved and strives to make a meaningful difference to Africa’s communities and wildlife.

Founded in 2005 at Antelope Park in Zimbabwe, ALERT is a non-profit organization dedicated to the facilitation and promotion of sound conservation and management plans for the African lion in consultation with governments, wildlife authorities and communities.

The Trust aims to support the four-stage African Lion Rehabilitation and Release into the Wild Program developed by Andrew & Wendy Conolly in 1999. The aim of this program is to provide a solution to augmenting the sharply decreasing numbers of African lions through the release of wild-borne offspring from rehabilitated captive bred lions by raising awareness and funds to source, secure and prepare suitable release sites for the lions.

WYSE Travel Confederation is a not-for-profit industry association dedicated to making travel experiences affordable, accessible and exciting for young people worldwide. WYSE hosts the annual WYSTC Conference (World Youth and Student Travel Conference) which facilitates discussions and forums between suppliers of volunteer projects and European agencies which African Impact attends each year.

African Impact is a proud member of this organization and through our association with WYSE we seek to enhance the sustainability of our projects through volunteering forums and interaction with other leaders in our niche of the tourism industry.

The Green Vision Foundation was founded in 2005 and has a key focus on Communication, Education and raising Public Awareness of the World Heritage Sites on the African continent. One of the Foundation’s aims is to create a photographic database which will be used for educational purposes, in order to preserve indigenous plant and wildlife through community education in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park. This beautiful area was declared as South Africa’s first Natural World Heritage Site by UNESCO and through our St Lucia Projects volunteers are photographing creatures that call this area home and contributing to this important database.

African Impact is proud to be a member of the Know Before You Go alliance, promoting education and awareness amongst travellers to ensure that your trip is as safe and rewarding as possible!

Know Before You Go (KBYG) is an ongoing campaign with around 300 travel industry partners aimed to educate and ensure British travellers stay safe and healthy abroad. The campaign was launched in 2001 to promote key messages including adequate travel insurance, country travel advice and more as well as a checklist full of practical trips for having a safe and enjoyable time.

For many of the beautiful images that you see on our website, our sincere thanks are extended to professional photographer and past volunteer Annabel Vere. For further information on Annabel's photography or a full display of her work, please visit www.annabelverephotography.com

We first met Annabel at our St Lucia Wildlife Photography and Conservation Project in South Africa in 2007 when she joined us as our first photography volunteer. Annabel has kept in touch with us and is a wonderful advocate for our work.

Here are some of Annabel’s thoughts on her time at our project in the rural village of Khula in the St Lucia area...

“In a small village called Khula near the Indian Ocean, East Coast of South Africa live a group of beautiful people. Their culture, still very much steeped in the traditional past is slowly being 'Westernised' by the influx of media invasion through various electrical contraptions.

However, for now, the Zulu men still have to find eleven cows before they are able to marry a girl and the healings of witch doctors and sangomas are still preferred to the modern clinics. The pace of life is blissfully slow, everyone has time to respectfully greet each other and smiles are generously given to strangers, that we would perhaps keep for someone we had not seen in a long time.

My four months spent working in this village was a lot of fun, the English and Zulu humour is unexpectedly very similar. The lack of materialism here gives so much more impassioned meaning and soulful depth that resonates in each person. I learned that the effortless gift of simple generosity of spirit is so beneficial to be shared between each other.

The area around Khula is a stunning national heritage site. The local wildlife, of the African variety is not really hunted anymore but admired in a conservational sense. However the Zulus respectfully used to incorporate the animals into their lives to use the them for clothing and meat, and at a person's death, their bodies were given to the crocodiles in a ceremony by the nearby Lake St Lucia.

These are some of the Zulu people I met, who have enriched my life.”

We are extremely proud of our partnership with the award winning Thanda Game Reserve in northern Zululand, South Africa. The Reserve is made up of 14,000 hectares of pristine bush and is home for Lion, Leopard, and Elephant, Buffalo, Black and White Rhino and many other key animals as well as over 400 species of birds.

The Thanda Foundation was established in order to focus attention on the socio-economic and developmental needs of the three neighbouring Tribal Authority Communities affected by Thanda. This foundation acts as a conduit for the raising of funds for such programmes and projects as well as for conservation research initiatives.

In 2006 the Thanda Foundation, in partnership with Thanda Private Game Reserve, launched a conservation research programme. The programme includes the monitoring of elephant, cheetah, lion, leopard and black rhino. In partnership with the Thanda Foundation, our volunteers assist with vital wildlife and conservation research work by gathering information in the field and spending time in the bush on conservation initiatives. Volunteers also spend some time in the research centre entering the captured data to be shared with the relevant researchers and authorities. Thanda’s partnership with neighbouring communities has also been strengthened by the raising of funds that seek to involve such communities in education programmes centred on biodiversity and community based natural resource management.

Over the past three years, numerous projects within the community have been funded. These projects range from catering facilities at the Tribal Authority, children’s creche equipment, computer installations at schools, sponsorships of a school choir to tour Sweden, sponsorship of a group of Zulu dancers to tour Sweden as well as the sponsorship of a youth soccer team to compete at the World Youth Soccer Games in Gothenburg in Sweden.