Across Africa...AEFF stretches its wings by growing its distribution network

AEFF's distribution network is steadily growing, not just in East Africa where we have recently joined up with several new distribution partners, but also with projects running further afield.

Over the past month, we have sent a full set of our 12 educational DVDs to the following organizations in southern Africa:

• Chipembele Wildlife Education Centre, a fun, interactive and contemporary learning facility for Zambian children. It focuses its programs on wildlife, the environment and conservation issues.


• The Brown Hyena Research Project’s Environmental Information Centre, which is situated at Kolmanskop Ghost Town near Luderitz in Namibia. It is open to the public and they also invite schools to visit the Center to learn about environmental and wildlife issues.{By the way, the coastal Namib Brown Hyenas are fascinating creatures - they are ecologically unique, as they scavenge and prey almost exclusively on Cape Fur Seal pups, which are born at mainland seal colonies, and which are a concentrated, permanent food source. It's worth taking a look at this website to learn more about these endangered predators).


• The Daktari Bush School in South Africa aims to educate and inspire children to care for their environment.

AEFF wishes to thank the Safaritalk forum and its members for putting us in touch with these organizations.

In Kenya and Tanzania, we are working hard to expand our distribution network, and ensure that all our existing partners have all 12 films. Keeping in close contact with our distribution partners also allows us to receive regular feedback from our audiences, which in turns enables us to constantly ensure our films are "hitting the mark".

Youth for Conservation is an organization which has been using AEFF's films as educational tools for many years. It is a grassroots wildlife conservation organization, that was established in Kenya by youth who are concerned about their wildlife heritage. They came together and created a forum that safeguards wildlife from snares and poaching, involves the local communities in conservation and prevents habitat loss. YfC hopes that through its younger generation, Kenyans will grow to have a greater understanding and therefore appreciation of their country's natural heritage.

Steve Itela, of YfC, sent us this message explaining why our films are so important to them, and why the arrival of our newer films is so timely:

"We invested in a projector and VCD for conservation education and will launch the program in March 2008. This will be a major boost to our program if AEEF can provide us with 12 films in DVD in both Kiswahili and English. We plan to launch the education program in both high cost and low cost schools in Nairobi and programme areas in Meru, Kisumu, Mt. Kenya and Tsavo. We would appreciate if you can provide some in local languages to help us penetrate Maasai and Kamba communities with our education program. Any support you can provide will be a major boost to YfC."

YfC also plans to open an environmental video library at their headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya:
The concept is to provide the youth with conservation films at affordable price and get feed back from them about the films they watch. This will help grow our membership with environmental conscious members.We will involve you in our programs and provide feed back after every events."

Going slightly further afield, to southern Tanzania, and we have received requests for films from both the Iringa International School and the Friends of Ruaha Society - the DVDs are on their way to them as we speak...

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The production of DVD copies costs AEFF significant sums of money each year. If you are able to assist us with DVD production and distribution costs, please make a donation - large or small, it all helps to get our educational films out to all these worthy conservation projects, schools and universities across Africa. Thank you.