Conservation Heritage- Turambe
In June, 2024, the PICC Team collaborated with our partner at Conservation-Heritage Turambe (CHT), Director Valerie Akuredusenge. CHT is located in NW Rwanda in Musanze, near Volcanoes National Park. We held a photography and art workshop with the staff, and thanks to generous donors, we were able to gift them a Canon DSLR camera with a zoom lens, a high quality photo printer, and other resources to continue sharing their conservation messages.
The following day the PICC team and CHT staff went to GS Kagano primary school near Volcanoes National Park to meet with a group of 10 young conservation club students. The children greeted us with a high-energy traditional welcome, singing and dancing, and were completely engaged with learning photography, field sketching, and primate ecology, behavior and conservation.
Each child received their own copy of the PICC Mountain Gorilla Coloring and Activity book and a drawing journal. We were impressed with how much they knew about mountain gorillas and were delighted with the wildlife stories they shared with us. A morning of classroom learning and outdoor photography was followed by treating the students and staff to a delicious lunch at a local restaurant and then an afternoon of art with their journals and field identification books.
The following day we met the students and their teachers at the Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund Center, in Volcanoes National Park. The interactive displays were fun and informative and we all learned so much about mountain gorillas! Outside of the visitor center are beautiful grounds and the students were able to build on their photo skills by capturing images of birds, flowers, classmates, teachers and the volcanoes.
Each student later received an enlarged print of their best photograph and will have access to a camera to continue developing their skills. We will be putting their photographs and their artwork on a project page on the PICC website soon!