Welcome to the Marine Mammal and wildlife Research and Community Development Expedition blog where you can keep up to date with all the happenings and information from Kenya

Saturday, June 6, 2009

From Mkwiro To Mombasa

Hello, it has been a busy week at GVI Kenya, with all our volunteers on base in Mkwiro, divided between our marine research programme and Mkwiro community development programme.

With all of our teaching volunteers working alongside our expedition volunteers in Mkwiro Primary School, we have been fortunate enough to open up two streams and share the volunteer love! Alongside our traditional programme of taking English lessons for standards 4, through to 8, we have also been running our nursery school programme, gladly taking the PE and arts lessons of the hands of the few teachers, and introducing our own series of 'educational' games... although to be honest, at that age, we are mmore concerned about them having fun trying out skills outside of the classroom, than learning in it.


'Lampard', our marine research boat has been patrolling the waters of Wasini Channel, Funzi bay and the Kisite Mpunguti MPA each day, and has been rewarded with dolphin sightings. There have been a few days of rain, but in general the seas are calmer and the dolphins sightings more regular. Unfortunately on Friday we were informed by Kenya Wildlife Service of a dolphin mortality near Funzi Island, however our research boat was not available to find it and help out. This is a shame, because dolphin mortalities and strandings can provide valuable information on species presence and threats to their conservation.
Finally, as the title of this blog suggests, I would like to introduce you to some very exciting news from Mombasa... some of you who have volunteered with us in past expeditions will have been lucky enough to meet with and work with the children from the Olive Rehabilitation Centre, an incredible community-based school that provides free education, lunch, counselling and other support to some of the most vulnerable children in Mombasa's Bombolulu slum. The great news is that GVI will be providing committed, on-going support to the ORC from July, with the start of our newest volunteer project, GVI Olives, and you can follow the story, from the very beginning on our new blog, http://www.gviolives.blogspot.com/

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