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NAMING GIRAFFES THE AFRICAN WAY

in: Animal Habitat by: Giraffe Centre

Literature on African Societies child naming ceremonies is quite fascinating. Mark Babatunde in his article titled 7 Most Fascinating Traditional African Baby Naming Ceremonies, describes the naming ceremony of a new baby among many African communities as one of the most important rites of passage in life as it announces the birth of a newborn, introduces the child to his or her extended family and the larger community, and above all, it confers on a child name.  According to the Sweet Mother International organization, birth and child naming are the very substance that weaves the thread, binding us into something larger than ourselves, towards which all of humanity gravitates.

Different African Sociology Scholars have described child birth and naming as joyful communal affairs, quite universal and persistent across generations. However, traditions vary with a given community, time and region. The two events have great significance for life perpetuation of the community in the future. As the new generation can offer that support to the old generation when they need support in old age. 

Giraffe naming process is not new at AFEW Kenya – Giraffe Centre as it started way back in 1979 at the time when the idea of saving the Rothschild’s giraffes from western Kenya was born. Betty Leslie Melville, the co-founder of AFEW Kenya named the first two young giraffes brought to their property in Lang’ata, Nairobi as Daisy and Marlon. Daisy was named after her favorite flower ‘Daisy” which grew abundantly within her home compound. From 1979 – 2017, all giraffes born or brought to Giraffe Centre were given names of people from different parts of the world who in one way or another have made a major contribution to AFEW’s conservation work. 

However, from 2017 this naming process was changed in favour of adopting a universal giraffe naming system. The new naming system use Kiswahili names of flowers and trees.  With the adoption of the new naming system, female giraffes are named after flowers while male giraffes are named after trees to represent their femininity and masculinity nature respectively. Active involvement of the general public has been at the core of this process. Members of general public are allowed to suggest or choose their most preferred giraffe name through AFEW’s social media platforms.

Just like in traditional African society, when a child is born, midwife normally announces the birth of the newborn child to the larger community. In most instances, the parents hold celebrations in appreciation to the creator for the gift of a newborn. Many people in the community including relatives, friends and neighbors will from time to time come to celebrate and rejoice with the family. They also bring different gifts for the mother and newborn child. Offering gifts to the newborn is done among African communities as a way of showing love, friendship and blessings to the child, mother and community

AFEW – Giraffe Centre would like to invite the general public in the virtual naming of three female giraffe calves. This event will be held on Monday, June 21st, 2021 as part of commemorating the World Giraffe Day which is normally marked every year on June 21st. Feel free to follow the link below and join us in celebrating these giraffe calves. We would also like to appeal to the general public to make financial contributions as gifts towards celebrating milestones made towards saving Rothschild’s giraffe from silent extinction. Send contributions of at least KShs.1000 equivalent to USD 10 towards this worth cause. All proceeds will go towards giraffe welfare management and eventual return to the wild of the young giraffes once they attain the recommended giraffe translocation age by Kenya Wildlife Service.

Why should you participate in this giraffe naming programme?

  1. You will receive acknowledgement for your support/contribution with your name appearing on the list of sponsors during the naming ceremony.
  2. You will receive regular updates of the named giraffes from AFEW Kenya.
  3. You will be invited to witness the eventual translocation of the same giraffes from the Giraffe Centre to a selected suitable habitat as part of the reintroduction back to the world to increase the natural population of Rothschild’s giraffes in Kenya.

To support the conservation of the Rothschild Giraffe, use this link to the platform to use for sending your contribution.

https://www.giraffecentretickets.co.ke/donation

References

2021 AFEW Kenya – Giraffe Centre Annual Environmental Competition

in: Activities1 Comment by: Giraffe Centre

Every year, AFEW Kenya – Giraffe Centre hosts an environmental competition that seeks to get student views on various environmental issues of the day.

This year, our environmental competition theme is the same as last year’s competition, which is “Healthy Planet, Healthy People, Healthy Future.”

To get the poster, click here. If you know a student or a school in our country Kenya, kindly recommend this competition to them. 

Naromoru Primary School

in: Activities by: Giraffe Centre

One’s poison is another’s food, as it’s said. Even to be more appropriate, ‘one’s waste is another’s resource.’   If you ever were an active member in school clubs and activities like inning and outings for whatever event, be it sports day, science congress, drama, and so on, lunch was a loaf of bread and either a 300ml bottle of soda or a packet of milk. Or was it just my school?! no?! okay! This simple meal would make an ‘A’ student cry if they missed. This meal, among other reasons, would make a form 4 student deny a form 1 their rightful and lawful chance to participate. Reason, well, age and how many trips they both have left. Age wasn’t just a number.

Well, the good old days. The question is, how did your school manage the waste produced from the fun and/or educational trip. Was it like this?

In a town called Kiserian, deep in the heart of Kajiado county, where a good number of Nairobians get their weekend delicacy, Ugali Nyama choma, lies  Naromoru Primary School. The school administration in collaboration with the students, kept their milk packets from their trips and school use. They managed an over 2,000 milk packets of waste well.

This school has made sure that their school environment is clean since their waste is well managed. Also, since where they are located some people have cattle, this school has made sure that their cattle has 2000 milk packets less risk of constipation   

We, on the other hand, were in need of packets for potting tree seedlings for our tree nursery. They heard of our need for packets and contacted us. Thanks to Naromoru Primary School, we are sure of increasing our tree nursery by at least 2000 trees. With them managing their waste well, we have over 2000 milk packets of resource for our tree planting project.

 We have a quest to plant even more trees at our sanctuary in Karen, Hardy area. These trees are for education, giraffe feeding, and distribution to schools across the country. We need, as a country to increase the forest cover to 10% and over for our benefit and the benefit of the future generations.

So, contact us if and when you have milk packet waste.

2020 AFEW Competition Essay Entry by Ms. Shirley Kemuma Magabi

in: Competition Entries3 Comments by: Giraffe Centre

Happy new year to everyone. Annually, AFEW Kenya – Giraffe Centre hosts an Environmental competition for Kenyan students. This competition runs from January 1st to March 31st. Last year, 2020, we did host as usual. Unfortunately, we had to cancel due to unavoidable conditions.

We are grateful, however, for the students who were able to submit their entries for the same. So we will be posting them on our website.

The first article we are posting is by Ms. Shirley Kemuma Magabi

 Click on the 2020 Competition theme “Healthy Planet, Healthy Biodiversity, Healthy People” to read her thoughts.

Biodiversity Inventory at Giraffe Centre

in: Activities by: Giraffe Centre

Through the concept of citizen science, The Global Southern Bio-blitz takes biodiversity inventory in green spaces within cities annually, as a way of creating biodiversity awareness.

 In September 2020, Giraffe Centre Sanctuary was a candidate site sampled for inventory take among others in the Nairobi City. Here is the report as generated by the Global Southern Bio blitz team that took inventory at the Giraffe Centre Sanctuary.

Participants included university students and AFEW Kenya staff.

God willing, we hope to take inventory through this initiative and other internal programs to build the biodiversity database involving the general public.

 You may also see the website to find out more about them https://scistarter.org/great-southern-bioblitz

Happy World Giraffe Day

in: Announcements by: Giraffe Centre

The African Fund for Endangered Wildlife-Kenya was established in 1979 by Jock and Betty Leslie Melville as a breeding Centre for the endangered Rothschild Giraffes. We pride ourselves as one of the oldest giraffe conservation organization in the world. The organization’s story has been one of progressive giraffe conservation, and vibrant transformational conservation education programmes for the youth of Kenya.

Since the time the organization was established, the Rothschild’s giraffe population in Kenya has tremendously increased from 130 to slightly over 700 individuals in the wild.

Did you know giraffe populations have plummeted by 40% and that they are listed as Vulnerable to extinction on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List? This is mainly due to habitat degradation, climate change and poaching. Well, you and I can do something to avert this looming biodiversity crisis. Join us and let us give giraffes overriding attention and rescue them from this silent extinction. We can do this by caring for our environment and creating awareness about the importance of biodiversity conservation.

On Sunday 21st June, 2020, AFEW Kenya joins other partners in celebrating World Giraffe Day. The day is dedicated every year to celebrate and raise awareness about the world’s tallest mammal on the longest day and/or night of the year! (Depending on which hemisphere you are in).

Join us in celebrating these icons by sharing with us a one word description of a giraffe. Share this with us on our social media sites below and use the hashtag #ILOVEGIRAFFES and #WORLDGIRAFFEDAY2020.

Happy World Giraffe Day from all of us here!

 

Connect with us on:

Twitter: @GiraffeCenter

Instagram: @GiraffeCentre_

Facebook: African Fund For Endangered Wildlife (Kenya)-Giraffe Centre.

www.giraffecentre.org

 

#ILOVEGIRAFFES

#WORLDGIRAFFEDAY2020

 

#STANDTALLFORTHEGIRAFFES

Pelican landing at lake Naivasha

Birding Experience

in: Announcements by: Giraffe Centre

Hey Giraffe Community, this Saturday, 6th of June 2020, we will be hosting a birding event from 8:00am to 10:00am at our Nature Sanctuary at Karen, Hardy Area. You’ll get an exclusive guided walk in the Sanctuary, get to view, learn and exprerience Birding like never before. 

For you to participate, you’ll need to make a prior booking by registering here. This is to make sure that before, during and after the event, we keep the measures put forth by the Government of Kenya in Combating the Pandemic.

For any inquiry, email us on reservations@giraffecentre.org  See you then

Tree planting

Everything goes

in: Activities by: Giraffe Centre

One’s poison is another’s food. That thing that seems small, useless to you means the world to another. The psalmist in one of his psalms would note this as he explains how everything means something to someone. He’d give an example with the water streams and towers, how from the rocks to the leaves need water.

CEO Giving students seedlings

I experienced this phenomenon with a cypress tree. Before you get up in arms with a claim on deforestation, it fell on its own on my neighbor’s vegetation and the tree was his. It was interesting how each person who saw the tree would envision it.

A carpenter saw frames for their creative ideas, a brick entrepreneur saw firewood for drying bricks, so on and forth.

There is a group, however, that interested me. They were keen to check for the hollow part of the stem. Why? If you ask me, it seems like they are missing a full part of the donut. Who in their right mind would go for the space between a donut. These guys would and they did.

One of the guys, just by knocking on one side of the cut trunk and knew it had honey in plenty. Apparently, in the olden days, that honey was the medicine for cold and flu. These guys didn’t just come here to look for materials for income, also for health from the cypress tree.

The only way these guys would have known this secret is if they were taught by their society members. By this simple secret, they have made a habit of growing trees with a sole purpose of honey where they’ll let them grow old, then fall on their own volition and hope for a bumper harvest of wood, sawdust, firewood and most important, honey.

Tembea Kenya

Tembea Kenya

in: Safari Experience by: Giraffe Centre

Njaanuary…, I never understood what this meant. I thought that maybe it’s one of those ‘Kang Kaka‘ wonderful spoken word performances. Creative mind he is by the way. I came to fully understand it’s meaning when I moved out. You know how back in college we’d be like”When I get a job, I’ll save lots just to recuperate like a king come December” Well, I now understand why saying”I’ll save” and doing it are two very different scenarios. The former makes me look responsible, the later is work and sacrifice.

Animals at the Sweet waters

And so, for last year’s December, I made a decision not to make the usual ‘Exodus’ to my village in the heart of Kakamega County. Only to realize that the only major difference I made is to miss out on the raw, uncut, untethered nature that is green with rains every often

as from 1500hrs to 2000hrs. So natural is my home that the monkeys are unashamed of their chauvinism. One time a lady friend was chasing them off a Maize plantation, the disrespect they displayed Still haunt me 20 years on.

All that for what? Six liters of a common soft drink and a sweet tooth. Don’t judge me, that was my dream once upon a time! January came, at least I paid my rent and essentials. All else, the only difference I had from the travelers? Other than clean air, clear roads. It’s only in the December festive season that a passenger can negotiate the fare price to a level of making the travel business feel like a charity. But who is Karma?! It’s January, the travel business owners are hiking their prices to exorbitant levels. Come on business owners! It’s not like January is happening to the unfair customers only. Exercise some humanity.

Tertiary Trip

“Come all ye who are heavy laden..” But before I bust your bubble, this call is only for those who participated in the tertiary level of the 2019 AFEW Annual Environmental Competition. For they will have a trip around the

Nakuru – Naivasha circuit. Imagine the Geo-spa, a game drive, camping, among others in January. The fun part, all this is a reward for a job well done

2017 Giraffe Centre Competition trophies

Live and Let Live

in: Announcements by: Giraffe Centre

What comes to your mind when you hear that phrase?

Talk about a live band singing to the beauty of the African giraffe under a sycamore tree watching the beautiful sunset (ooh yes the sunset has to be there because without it, what Africa are you talking about?)

Maybe the concept is a bit far-stretched, but you get my point. This world would be so lackluster if man were the only species inhabiting it. The beauty of it all that makes living worthwhile is the incessant chirping of birds, the joy of clean air and the smell of the rain. So the idea of us living to uphold another life is more like the Dominos effect- which essentially means that everything we do ultimately affects our coexistence in one way or another.

Our Annual National Environmental Awareness Competition all stems from this concept. As we all know, our world is moving towards a crisis, a crisis of survival and sustainability. So what better way to create awareness on Sustainable Environmental Conservation if not the young generation?

This Friday, 7th June 2019, we see Winners of the National Environmental Awareness Competition showcase their brilliance. Ranging from artwork to excellent essays, we see the ingenuity of every individual’s approach in achieving a common goal of Environmental conservation.

In the spirit of Eid Mubarak, stay tuned as we unleash the Arts in Conservation!