Selected Careers in Conservation

Janet Mallentze - Botswana

Janet is a ranger at Mokolodi Nature Reserve near Gaborone in Botswana. Mokolodi is described on page 6. Janet’s interest in wildlife and the environment was sparked when she joined the Wildlife Club at primary school. She went on to study travel and tourism at tertiary level and took university modules on conservation and guiding. She has done further training on the job and through her work even been to the USA for courses there.

Janet started at Mokolodi as a volunteer in May 2007, and within 6 months was given a permanent job as a ranger. She was trained by David (when he was in his 26th year of working at Mokolodi) and Lincoln. When she started she was the only woman working in the Conservation department, she didn’t mind and absolutely loves her work.

Janet takes visitors into the bush, tracking rhino. They move in 4 x 4 trucks to get to the general area where they think the rhinos may be and then move on foot. She may spend the whole day tracking. It can be physically demanding work.

Janet knows each of the rhino on the reserve, she knows their habits, personalities and behaviours, and they know her. She has to be alert to the rhinos and how they react to the different visitors, and she has to be alert to the visitors, some may never have been in the bush, and never been close to wildlife. Some may be very experienced. Some may be fit, others may find trekking in the bush a challenge. She is responsible for the safety and welfare of visitors and of the wildlife.

Educational technology

Simon Mwangangi - Kenya

Simon lives near the base of Mount Kenya. He is manager of Lewa’s Digital Literacy Programme, a programme that he founded, and that won the 2018 Google Impact Challenge as the most impactful of its kind in Kenya.

Simon has an interesting background. He came from a poor family and attended local primary and secondary schools. His family could not afford tertiary education, so he worked at home for 2 years to get his school fees and then joined a Lewa-supported secondary school where he developed a passion for both wildlife, technology, and education.

After completing school many youths around him looked for scholarships, but Simon wanted an apprenticeship, to learn about technology and conservation. He enrolled in free tech and pedagogy courses on-line and practiced what he learned while building the Lewa digital Literacy program. It provides computers, tablets, content and training to teachers and learners in the 23 schools supported by Lewa Wildlife Conservancy. It has meant that teachers and pupils in all these schools know how to use computers, use them daily, and have a much better quality of education and more opportunities than they otherwise would. There are currently 6400 learners in this Lewa community, the same schools where Simon and his team studied. Simon leads a team of six, roles are shared, including repair and maintenance, reading programme, digital content development, training and monitoring and evaluation. His own work includes planning the way forward for the program, preparing budgets and supervising. He helps design new technology through partnerships with tech companies and develops curriculum in partnership with the Kenya Institute of Curriculum development. He also works with the fundraising team to raise money for the program and to develop and maintain partnerships.

“I enjoy seeing a complete development circle of education Technology, from the design table to where it is deployed and back to improvement, a rare chance most developers do not have. My ambition is to give equal and free access to quality education to every child in Africa! Helping them learn what they want, when they want to, and more so apply the knowledge to develop solutions for their social problems.”

“I really love coding, I don’t have enough time to do it as I would love to,