276 | AIDING WINGS

276

Art. # 276

ONLY AN INFORMED AND A CONTENT SOCIETY CAN INDULGE IN CONSERVATION

Aiding Wings, Giving a push

Aiding Wings, Cooka Boo and social guests

Photos and text by Stefan Rust

2014

(In terms of the Geneva Convention the copyright of these texts belongs to Stefan Rust)

International operating BirdsConTour (Birds Conservation & Tourism) formed the non-religious and non-political charity program Aiding Wings.

Aiding Wings works to motivate people and to improve the lives of people, ultimately to generate a nature conservation conscious community.

BirdsConTour believes that only an informed and a content society can indulge in sustainable nature conservation.

BirdsConTour Aiding Wings supported the Ngatuve Vatere Orphanage in Namibia and the Cooka Boo TB and HIV Management Station in Botswana.

Another campaign of Aiding Wings was successfully accomplished:

Giving a push:

   

Early in the morning of the 8^th of June the Moremi Tour group came pass a vehicle breakdown along the roadside to the Tsodillo Hills, Botswana. Members of this eight-guest tour group, traveling from Zimbabwe via Namibia to Botswana, assisted in pushing a small truck in an attempt to get the engine running again, but without success. But towing the truck with the tour bus was successful. The breakdown incident forced the operators of the truck to sleep next to this remote road while during this night the temperature dropped to only 1 degree Celsius above freezing point. The Botswana people were thankful and smiling for the help by the tour members and the guests in return enjoyed lots of fun.

Cooka Boo and social guests:

      

BirdsConTour initiative Aiding Wings supports tuberculosis (TB) and HIV management by having delivered First Aid products, generously sponsored by Mrs. Olivia Koch, Mrs. Dagmar Goetz and Mrs. Brigitte Böker, to Cooka Boo, a TB and HIV management station in D’Kar, situated within the remote Ghanzi district of Botswana.

The managers, Mrs. Goitshwalamgemang Ditsheko (left) and Mrs. Onkemetse Maruping (right) of Cooka Boo confirm the fact that the Ghanzi district has the highest TB notification rates in the country. Knowing that the underlying cause of TB is poverty and that with the advent of HIV and AIDS, Botswana reached by 2005 a TB notification rate of 602 per 100 000 (one of the highest globally), the Kuru Family Of Organisations (KFO) fights TB with a systematic programme, targeting this primarily poor people’s disease by having assigned this task to its subsidiary, the Letloa Trust.

‘Cooka Boo’ and ‘Re Batla Botshelo’ means ‘We Want Life!!!’

BirdsConTour would like to thank the Sponsors, Volunteers and Contributors to the Aiding Wings program!