We take pride in saying that most of our employees are from the local community, by this we are actively involving them in development. We conduct local clinic visits (dental, ambulance transfers and other general services) which are arranged by Volunteer groups who come through Cottar’s 1920’s camp. We have also built a foot bridge with the Bridging the Gap Africa. The people can now access social amenities unlike before where they had difficulty crossing the Sand River especially during floods. The bridge is now saving an average of six lives a year.

The Cottars Wildlife Conservation Trust( CWCT) will be running a scout operation for wildlife monitoring, anti-poaching and anti-deforestation, and a host of other functions necessary to operate a wildlife conservancy. We have also acquired a gyrocopter to do aerial reconnaissance of activities within the conservancy and wider Mara area to help build a time lapse data base of land use change, wildlife and livestock counts and additional donor funding for this will have a big impact on land use change decisions for the future.

In regards to being members of the Long Run Destinations which practice the 4C’s (Community, Conservation, Culture & Commerce), and prior to the conservancy project, Cottars built the Olpalagilagi Primary School for a total of 200 students, paying teachers salaries and – to keep the children coming to school – we also run a feeding program for them.

Many thanks to all the people and organizations that made efforts to support CWCT. Nothing of value is ever for free, nor can anything sustainable be achieved without ownership and commitmnet by the intended beneficiaries.