CCF’s Future Conservationist of Africa Programme Begins in Somaliland

CCF is dedicated to saving the cheetah in the wild. CCF works with the people who live on the land where cheetahs and wildlife live by addressing environmental, social, and economic problems that impact their ecosystems through education.

The Programme Objective:

• Focus on integrated conservation curriculum engaging students with the natural world.
• Interactive platforms for young people to learn about Somaliland’s wildlife – like the cheetah.
• Teaches students the value of wildlife in the ecosystem, how-to-live in harmony with them.

Commencing ecology and wildlife-related education to lower, upper primary, and secondary schools of Somaliland for students to become vital. Inducing particular subjects and topics of wildlife, especially cheetah and its conservation, are playing a great role to understand the level of decrease and extinction facing cheetahs recently in many places of the world, including Somaliland, where illegal trafficking has become common and a side business to poachers and traffickers crossing the Red Sea to Gulf countries.

Understanding cheetah population, habitats, and the influence that human-wildlife conflicts have caused are essential and require raising awareness among young students for the future generation’s rescue of cheetahs in Somaliland particularly through education and cross-curriculum matching their ordinary education and syllabus planned mainstay of education and science.

Successful meetings with Minister of Education Dr. Buuxane, DG Ministry of Education, Regional and District education officers made it possible to ignite a new path of intervention based on the Future Conservationist of Africa (FCA) programme of Cheetah Conservation Fund that aims to work and collaborate with the Ministry of Education and Science and introduce wildlife and cheetah knowledge to the students of all levels in all Somaliland regions. The syllabus carried by this FCA programme is cross-cutting all curriculum of schools and it allows all students and teachers to do their obligation and normal schedule of teaching national education syllabus and it does not change and increase any burden to their time of teaching and education periods.

Full support from the Somaliland Minister of Education allows starting several serial progress steps including producing and translating teaching materials like teachers’ guides and students’ books of two levels upper primary and secondary schools written in the Somali language. The other progress achieved included training school teachers of primary and secondary schools of the Awdal region while other regions will be next as early as possible.

The third progress accomplished was to provide awareness sessions to school students both primary and secondary in Conservancy One of the Awdal region where the programme was started in December 2023. The training period was two days each on four sites (Geed-Deeble, Darasalaam, Maluugta, and Caraysan). Each two days covered listed topics in each site. Nearly 2000 students of both primary and secondary schools had the chance to learn the new FAC education programme that CCF started in Somaliland. Besides that, CCF made available reading material consisting of knowledge of cheetah, integrated livestock and predator management, and Animal health to some libraries of Somaliland including Gabiley where communities and students will have an opportunity to find the knowledge related to the above-mentioned topics and educations.

CCF will proceed with the provision of training teachers and students in Somaliland regions into the FCA programme to build knowledge of the community from the future generation that will have basic education about wildlife, environment, livestock, and especially cheetahs which are precious assets of the Somaliland community. The programme was generously funded by an IUCN Save Our Species grant.