My name is Isabel Kamanga, I hold a BSc in Agroforestry attained from the Copperbelt University.
In the month of August 2023, I was given the privilege to work with Conservation Lower Zambezi and my experience with the organisation was amazing as I learnt a lot. During my time at CLZ, I was part of a team that carried out extension work in different communities of a Chiawa Game Management Area (GMAs) and taught various community members on the importance of wildlife conservation and the negative implications associated with not practicing it through the Anti-snare Campaign. It is during this time that I was able to have a face-to- face interactions with people who frequently experienced human-wildlife conflicts and was able to disseminate information on how this could be resolved in order to promote human and wildlife coexistence.
In the last week of my internship, I was part of a team that trained school going children about conservation. The training was conducted through the use of visual aids and park visits as this made it easier for the children to realise the importance of what they learnt in school and what they saw in the park. This was exciting and made them eager to learn. Not only did the training involve conservation education, but also of health education so that the pupils would better learn how to take care of themselves. It was quite amazing that this training did not only look out for the girl child through a project called “Wuka”, but also focused on the boy child through a project called “boys champions”. This showed me that CLZ is one of the many organizations that promote gender equality.
Overall, data entry and report writing were one of my key duties. It was through working with different data sets obtained from different project areas that I was able to improve my data analysis skills and now able to deliver a high standard of work.
Working with CLZ was quite an adventure and was very beneficial for my career fulfilment and personal growth. It was through the opportunity that I was given that I have become more proficient in identifying potential conservation threats and how they can be moderated.
I am more than grateful to CLZ and Lady Marcy for the opportunity as it helped me gain a diversity of skills and discover my capabilities and what I need to work on in order to flourish in my career. It was more than an honour to have been a part of an innovative organization that helps save and serve wildlife through conservation.