Haberdashers’ Overseas Scholarship Programme 2015

A group of young people recently returned from taking part in a Wilderness Trail led by the Wilderness Leadership School in South Africa.  Haberdashers’ school leaver Kate Radford thoroughly enjoyed her experience and wrote the following account of her time spent one her Wilderness Journey and volunteering with the Wilderness Foundation project ‘Umzi Wethu’.
This summer a group of Haberdashers’ leavers travelled to South Africa for two weeks thanks to the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers’ and the Wilderness Foundation UK.  A few of us knew each others as we were from partner schools or the same school but we were mainly travelling with people we had only met once at a briefing. 
The trip was made up of two parts.  The first week was spent in Durban where we travelled to Umfolozi and spent five days trekking in two groups with African guides and pupils from the Umzi Wethu academy.  We were walking in the Hluhluwe game park which included the big five.  It was both terrifying and amazing to see these animals up close.  We slept under the stars and had to do night watch to protect the camp.   On our third day we had an indaba where we spoke about anything we wanted to and was like a support group.  We saw all of the big five apart from the leopard, although we saw leopard prints that were fresh from the night before.  We also saw many other animals and shared one campsite with two hippos. 
In the evenings we had solitary, which was sitting and watching the sunset go down for about half an hour on our own.  It was so peaceful and magical and our sense of hearing became so much stronger as there was no background noise.  We would often see animals quite close whilst we were doing solitary and were able to watch them acting naturally in their environment.  It was beautiful.
Once the trail had finished we spent a night at Twin Streams before leaving Durban and flying to Port Elizabeth.  In PE (Port Elizabeth) we stayed at one of the Wilderness Foundation centres called Umzi Wethu.  Over the next few days we helped to paint toilets at a school and plant trees to teach the pupils about sustainability and looking after the planet.  We were the first people who had volunteered there as it was a new school, which felt really special.  We also went Samrec, which was a penguin and bird rehabilitation centre.  We watched them being fed and then were given jobs to do, such as cleaning the kitchen, spraying down the pool outside and mopping the floor. 
As well as this we visited a lion retirement home.  The lions, tigers and leopards living there had been mistreated by people in the circus trade or people who had raised them in a flat and had fed them on pasta so that they did not develop properly and now cannot walk.  They are rescued and taken to a really natural home but cannot be released in to the wild as they are too damaged.  We went to the Addo Elephant Park and drove through it to see lots of different wildlife.  It was really interesting but not as fun as seeing the animals in the wild as we had done a few days prior to this. 
We went on a walk around a local game park with school pupils.  It was called a Pride walk as it was about getting the pupils to take pride in the environment and their futures.  We told them a little bit about what we had been doing and found out about their career goals.
Throughout our time in South Africa we met some amazing people and our group has stayed in contact as really good friends.  It was such a special experience and definitely a once in a lifetime experience!
If you would like further information about the Wilderness Trails please contact Nigel Carr or Jo Roberts at the WFUK on 0300 123 3073 or contact us by email.