Kuti Wildlife Park About Kuti Kuti Community Wildlife Park is a stunning 2000 hectare reserve located an hour from Lilongwe and near to the lake. Home to a huge variety of wildlife with big mammals like giraffe, zebra, sable, kuku and impala it is also a unique project that showcases how conservation can benefit the local people. There are eleven villages surrounding Kuti, housing a total of around 30,000 people who are all stakeholders in the park. As a notfor-profit organisation, all proceeds are invested back into community projects, helping to improve the living conditions of the surrounding community with micro-projects such as borehole maintenance, tree planting, support of orphanages and schools, and the facilitation of sustainable harvesting of fish/wood/medicinal plants etc. School groups also visit the park with the chance to see wild animals in their natural habitat. Group Village Heads also meet with members of the Kuti committee on a regular basis to ensure that everything is working for them and their people and helps to ensure the community’s continued support.
Lilongwe Wildlife Centre and Kuti: why work together? Kuti and Lilongwe Wildlife Centre are both not-for-profit organisations working with the following broad goal in mind: to conserve wildlife by working together with the local communities to protect wild animals and their habitats. Kuti became a preferred site for many of Lilongwe Wildlife Centre’s wildlife releases in 2010. Now with the benefit of Lilongwe Wildlife Centre’s recent experiences in environmental education, community outreach and responsible tourism the two organisations plan to work together to develop similar programmes at Kuti, helping to protect even more vulnerable animals and helping more local communities. This is where our volunteers come in!
How volunteers can help •
Rescue, rehabilitation and release: Kuti has been chosen as a key release site for wild animals rescued and rehabilitated by Lilongwe Wildlife Centre. Volunteers will be needed to help monitor releases of rehabilitated animals from Lilongwe Wildlife Centre or evaluate the habitat for future releases.
•
Habitat conservation: Kuti is a 2000ha protected wilderness reserve home to abundant and diverse wildlife including a number of threatened species. Projects helping in this area could include game counts, bird census, fence maintenance, anti-poaching patrols and habitat surveys
•
Environmental education/community outreach: By working together with the local communities we can help people to understand how the conservation of Kuti will benefit both the people and the wildlife. In the long term, outreach projects such as those run already run at Lilongwe Wildlife Centre could also provide direct benefits to the people who are supporting Kuti. Work to develop the educational activities running on site for school groups will start immediately, with volunteers also working on school camps and education outreach in the local community in the medium term. As funding permits, successful Lilongwe Wildlife Centre projects such as our ‘green and clean’ programme and adult literacy ‘learning through wildlife’ will also begin around Kuti.
•
Responsible tourism: Kuti has the potential to generate revenue through tourism including day trips and overnight stays from which revenue is then invested back into the project. Volunteers will have the opportunity to help with developing the site for visitors. This could include creating signage, cutting trails, map making and marketing.
The volunteer experience This is a fantastic opportunity for volunteers to spend time away from the city and out in true African bush, giving an authentic safari-like experience in true wilderness working alongside wild animals in their natural environment. Working alongside Kuti’s staff and our on site coordinator, volunteers will be involved in the exciting process of helping to set up the new Kuti programme. Work required could involve any of the above areas, and volunteers will need to be flexible, able to work independently and eager to take on a new challenge. As there are no predators it is safe to walk and cycle around the reserve, and there’s certainly no better way to see the wildlife. You will be staying on site in basic but comfortable dorm-style accommodation with solar power and hot water. Food will be provided, and you will be responsible for cooking together around a camp fire out under the stars. The same working hours apply as at the Wildlife Centre, but as you are only 30 minutes from the lake we recommend spending your day off on the beach, or perhaps doing a spot of diving or kayaking! This experience is available to volunteers on placements of 3 weeks or more as a minimum of 2 weeks are required at the wildlife centre first. Placements at Kuti are a minimum of 1 week, but there is no maximum, if you would prefer to spend your time at Kuti rather than the Wildlife Centre then please let us know. There is a supplement of £50 for each week spent at Kuti. Volunteers travel to/from the park by public minibus.