Animal Keeper's Association of Africa

Uganda Wildlife Education Centre (UWEC) has embarked on regional community conservation education as a means of creating awareness about the importance of wildlife conservation through knowledge and information sharing. The results have been overwhelming because prior to the knowledge, cultural beliefs and morbid fear of the wild surrounded their hostile treatment of wildlife in general but after gaining educative information, the locals were empowered to protect and conserve nature. The education received also exposed communities to an understanding of Uganda’s eco-systems, culture and the wild animals, with a practical thrilling experience.

Furthermore, this program empowered the communities to change their attitudes and appreciate that the more they put pressure on nature, the worse their lives became. Uganda is gifted by nature and there are many aspects of it to learn from. This kind of holistic approach has yielded fruits as the means through which the Ugandan community get vivid memories of how much their actions impact on the environment. Indeed,UWEC has learnt that reaching out to the community is more effective than carrying it out onsite or through the media since the vast majority of the people live in the rural setting.

Therefore it was upon such realisation that UWEC swung into action to restore conservation sanity in the communities, focusing to sensitise the masses and shift their attitude to conserving the environment and protecting the wildlife around them. The success of this program is based on the role of keepers and wildlife conservation educators, who are the mouth pieces for nature conservation and UWEC as a whole.

Jimmy Awany.
Uganda Wildlife Education Centre
Animal caregiver /AkAA Committee member