Latest News From Chipembele
Despite schools closing in late June due to the pandemic, the Chipembele team have been busy with activities that include radio shows, rescuing a baby baboon and baby elephant, community game drives, the Mentors At Chipembele (MAC) program and professional training courses to mention just a few! With the schools now reopening their team is keen to get back into the full swing again.
New Chief Executive Officer
After 23 years at the helm, Anna is stepping back as Executive Director. She is not stepping down, and will still be busy managing some of Chipembele’s projects, such as the student sponsorship scheme, animal rehabilitation programme and the Chipembele Conservation Centre.
To take on the day to day running of Chipembele’s main conservation and community education projects and programmes, fundraising, financial and team management a new position of Chief Executive Office (CEO) was created last year. This varied CEO job has been taken up by Olivia Petre who has now joined the team from the UK.
Olivia has extensive experience managing conservation NGOs and working in remote, rural environments in both Africa and Asia. Her background in project management has always been coupled with a passion for conservation. After working on a marine project in Borneo, her passion has been reinforced by managing community-led forest-based conservation projects in Cameroon, Madagascar, DRC and Lao PDR.
She brings a wide range of skills, qualifications and personal attributes that are perfectly suited to the new CEO position and to the leadership of the organisation, deeply believing in the importance of education to make effective long-term changes. Olivia will be based at the Chipembele Office in the grounds of the Mfuwe Day Secondary School.
Saving Birds
The Mentors at Chipembele (MAC) team observed that birds were being caught in snares made from mosquito nets. As young conservationists who are passionate about wildlife, they decided to take action.
They made two trips to the Lupande River, which is one of the tributaries of Luangwa, and removed these illegal snares in August. During just two days work they rescued 17 birds and removed over 100 snares, which they later burnt.
Sad loss of a star
Chipembele sadly reported the loss of Vale Benson Beza.
“The entire Chipembele Team was deeply shocked and saddened by the loss of Benson Beza who passed away on July 16 at the age of 21 at Chipata General Hospital after a short illness.“
Benson had been sponsored through Chipembele since he was in Grade 8, quickly becoming a core member of the Chipembele Conservation Programme. Whatever activities, events and programmes were happening, he would fully get involved. In 2019 he was selected on merit as one of 14 students for the conservation education student exchange programme, ‘Tisamale,’ traveling to Adelaide (Australia) for 3 weeks. Later in 2019 he was sponsored by Schul Projekte Sambia (Switzerland) through Chipembele to attend Mulungushi University for a degree in Environmental Studies. This year, together with his best friends Jacob Mphasi and Meya Sakala (also sponsored through Chipembele and studying the same degree), he founded the first ever Environmental Club at their University.
“His legacy of a young rural Zambian succeeding through determination and passion, despite such a humble and difficult background, will live on through the Benson Beza Conservation Award program, a new initiative that we are launching which aims to identify and support future conservations sharing the key attributes that Benson had.”
In his honour, Chipembele have decided to launch a very special fundraising campaign via GlobalGiving (GG). This will finance the Benson Beza Memorial Conservation Awards and Leadership Development Programme. The initial fundraiser runs from 13-30 September 2021 with the challenge to raise at least $5,000 from at least 40 donors. This then allows Chipembele (and Benson’s Memorial Fund and projects) from being an ongoing part of the Global Giving community. Visit www.globalgiving.org to learn more about how you can help.
Chipembele is also developing a conservation awards programme to recognise and help students like Benson, to overcome barriers and to become our new conservation leaders.
Find out more
You can find out more about this, and other news, in Chipembele’s latest newsletter and also keep checking their Facebook Page to follow how they are getting.
Photos ©Chipembele