- Conservation through Art, Education and Science -

BUSH BEAT BUGLE Vol. 9:
jul 2009

Africa Matters News from Home and Abroad

	Detailed updates on previous news items
	What we're currently working on
	And what's planned for the coming year Conservation through Dance and Drama Conservation through Education Support

AN IMMEDIATE NEED: Get Involved. Click here

For IMMEDIATE ACTION: Education: Sponsor a Student in Zimbabwe. How you can make direct impact by making a donation of school fees. Click here

Visit our new Photo Gallery page with crafts from Zimbabwe! Click here

 

WILDLIFE CONSERVATION NETWORK:  In October the Board and Friends staffed our table at the WCN EXPO held at Foothill College. This was a great event (visit their website at www.wildnet.org).  Besides making great contacts and friends, we sold crafts that were made at the Painted Dog Conservation's new Arts and Crafts program, that Director Wendy Blakeleys set up in Zimbabwe this year; see Bush Beat Bugle for more details.   The Expo offered a great of scientists and exhibitors, from around the world.  We highly recommend you mark your calendars for next October. We will certainly be there again.

 

APPLICATIONS FOR ASSISTANCE from Africa Matters are now possible (Click here). If you are doing work in conservation and could use assistance, please see the application and/or contact us.  It is advised you submit the application form via email.

 

See new photos in our gallery

 

Be sure to see how you can help!

Mission

It is the goal of AFRICA MATTERS to promote wildlife conservation by encouraging the interaction of artists, teachers and scientists. We directly offer financial and logistical assistance to individuals and organizations whose work not only expands scientific knowledge from the field, but also makes that knowledge available to others, particularly young Africans. We believe that art and youth have a key role to play in the world of conservation. Therefore, the organizations and individuals whose work we support all have a facet of education and have the potential, the imagination and the willingness to use art as valuable international language in the cause of conservation.

Our Three Ps Partners we work with, Projects we assist, and the Pathways we use and create, establish the intersection for these interactions.

Conservation is about the use of resources, and so Africa Matters first choice for problem solution, is to use existing resources. Every attempt is made to assure that solutions are both site-specific and still globally responsible. We believe there are all sorts of experts, and everyone needs to be heard. Problems are multi-faceted and so are the solutions.  

Some people are experts simply by virtue of their personal and historical experience and observation. They must speak and they must be heard. Some people are experts simply because they are innocents, and they must also be heard. 

It is the human ability to IMAGINE that is the seat of all hope and the children are the biggest resource of imagination in the world.  The pathway from imagination is creativity to express what we imagine. We label these expressions as ART.

Early in the history of Man and early in the life of each individual, the most basic reaction to our world has been expressive: a child hums, repeats a phrase, a series of movements,  shouts in joy or pain;  grows a bit and makes a drawing, a painting, a song, a poem, a dance, a sculpture, a play. In our modern world, technology has expanded the possibilities for these expressions ALMOST beyond our imaginings.  Africa Matters is here to encourage all that expression on their path to conservation.

The 21st Century brings ever-harder challenges to our stewardship of the planet as the normal  biological activity of the planet is no longer in balance with human impact; as the shear weight of increased human presence and use and abuse of resources tips the scales. We must take up the challenge of seeking more and better answers if we are to conserve wildlife, human life and all the systems that support it.

The ability to share all our expressions, be they artistic or scientific quickly and widely through technology, offers us ever more ways to meet the challenge.  AFRICA MATTERS hopes to be one place where these three intersect this ART, this EDUCATION, this SCIENCE.  We must love the land and her creatures first engage our hearts in this bond. Then we must study and share what we learn.  That sharing must not only be of information, but must contain the love. Sometimes it is the innocence of the amateur that sheds the most light.