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Across all the Wild Bird Trust projects, the importance of engaging communities is well understood and incorporated into each project ethos.

Community Empowerment

community-empowerment

The Nkashi Classic is a celebration of the mekoro, a wooden dugout canoe which the BaYei guides use to explore the narrow and winding waterways of the Okavango Delta and its headwaters in Angola. The Nkashi is the Setswana name for the pole that is used to drive a mekoro, an essential skill for any person born around the Delta. 

Organised by the Botswana Wild Bird Trust in partnership with Botswana Tourism Organisation, the Nkashi Classic takes place along the Thamalakane River in Maun,where the vital floodwaters that flow unimpeded from the highlands of Angola, through Namibia and into the Okavango Delta become an oasis for so many wildlife that depend on these waters. 

The Nkashi Classic aims to create awareness on the importance of the Okavango River System, the community it supports, and the power that it holds to affect positive change for future generations.


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The Nkashi Classic is a celebration of the mekoro, a wooden dugout canoe which the BaYei guides use to explore the narrow and winding waterways of the Okavango Delta.

Nkashi Classic

The Educator Expeditions, are an educational and developmental exploration-focused project, aimed at supporting primary school teachers with the resources to improve the poor academic results. Schools in the North- Western districts, which are divided to the Ngamiland and Okavango Delta sub-districts, have historically performed below average.

These workshops were launched to impart the use of scientific, academic and indigenous knowledge by the Botswana Wild Bird Trust, National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project, and local knowledge of the Delta people. We have facilitated knowledge sharing with the educators to appreciate and understand their students' precious environment as they will one day be the custodians.


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The Educator Expeditions, are an educational and developmental exploration-focused project, aimed at primary school teachers based in the Okavango Delta.

Educator Expeditions

The Okavango Delta, located in northern Botswana, is the largest freshwater wetland in southern Africa and is home to over 1,000 species of plants, more than 480 species of birds, 130 species of mammals, and numerous species of reptiles and fish.  More specifically, the Okavango Delta is home to 24 species of globally threatened birds and 33 species of water birds. The delta is also an important site for migratory bird species and has been designated both a Ramsar site by the Ramsar Convention and Important Bird Area. 

The Botswana Wild Bird Trust has constructed a permanent scientific research base at Mopiri Camp on the east of the Okavango Delta. It has been used as the launch site for numerous National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project Delta wetland bird surveys, as well as being used to undertake education workshops with teachers from local schools in our community outreach programmes. Mopiri Camp is used as a research base for students to undertake biodiversity and water-based research for projects and in future, Mopiri will be used to launch long-term water, bird and fish population-monitoring programs in the lagoon and surrounding channel.
 

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The Okavango Delta is home to 24 species of globally threatened birds and 33 species of water birds.

Community Empowerment

Nkashi Classic

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