Brackenhurst, Kenya
Brackenhurst, idyllically situated on one hundred acres, and only forty kilometers from Nairobi, is nestled within a restored indigenous forest and an internationally recognized botanical garden. Brackenhurst is the ideal Kenyan base for studies in virtually any field.
The campus also hosts Woodland Star School, a progressive international elementary school (with plans to progress to secondary), boasting a diverse learning community. This school is seen as an ideal incubator for holistic, child-centered education in Kenya and as a launching pad for broader professional development and community outreach.
The Brackenhurst infrastructure, functioning school, on-site environmental program, and surrounding community connections provide a myriad of “real-world laboratory” opportunities for programs. An impressive network of relationships is available for program input and bespoke lectures. These partners include nearby social, conservation, economic, and research initiatives.
Educational Programs
Ecology & Conservation:
- Study Forest Restoration Ecology in Brackenhurst’s restored indigenous forest. The Brackenhurst Botanic Garden and indigenous forest is a fascinating example of how quickly biodiversity and ecosystem services can be restored on a relatively small piece of land.
- The Regenerative Permaculture program equips and empowers participants with methods of design, and the skills to observe and apply practical solutions to the needs of specific target groups. This is accomplished through the implementation of regenerative practices focused on diversity, resource management, and energy capture.
Health Science:
- Gain invaluable experience in a third-world context through a formal partnership with the government’s Ministry of Health, as well as direct relationships with various grassroots community health initiatives. This Healthcare program is for students studying a medical, nursing, or healthcare qualification. Students will fill a supporting role for Kenyan medical professionals at clinics and hospitals, participate in cross-cultural learning workshops, and promote health education through community outreach.
Service Learning
Conservation:
- Brackenhurst Botanic Garden provides the perfect learning space that offers practical skills and methods for designing and creating sustainable living systems, integrating human needs with the ecosystems in which we are rooted. Join the Forest Regeneration & Permaculture service learning project at Brackenhurst to empower and train the local community to replicate these sustainable efforts elsewhere.
Education:
- Woodland Star School is an ideal laboratory for education programs, with a diverse student and teacher community and an emphasis on experiential, project-based learning and environmental responsibility. This Primary Education service learning project seeks to address the issue of quality education in Kenya by partnering with international primary school educators in the exploration, development, and implementation of dynamic learning practices.
The Wildlife College, Kenya
On the outskirts of the world-renowned Maasai Mara National Reserve lies a remarkable community-based conservation area called Pardamat. The Pardamat Conservation Area is unique not only because it serves as an important migration route that connects the bordering established conservancies to the Mara Triangle and then to the Maasai Mara National Reserve, but also because it is the only Mara Conservancy that is premised on a dual-use conservation model.
This means the community’s 850 landowners have legally registered their 26,00 hectares of land as a wildlife conservation area while remaining to live and work on it.
It is amidst this backdrop of critical community conservation and innovation that the Wildlife Tourism College of Maasai Mara has been conceptualized. The college will bring together existing learning centers, including the Koiyaki Guide School that was previously situated in the Naboisho Conservancy, to provide critical skills training to meet the increasing demand of the tourism industry in the Greater Maasai Mara.
This first-of-its-kind initiative is designed to be a catalyst for the development of a centralized tourism, vocational education, research, and community-capacity building hub within the region. The College will also serve as an EDU Africa learning center for international faculty and students.
Educational Programs
Custom Faculty-led Programs:
- The EDU Learning Centre at the WTC creates the ideal base for custom faculty-led programming spanning a broad range of fields including health sciences, social sciences, environmental sciences, business studies, and more.
Wildlife Ecology and Conservation Summer Program:
- EDU Africa runs an annual, assessed program for individual undergraduate students that offers practical experience in the area of ecology and is split between the Pardamat Conservation area (2 weeks) and our eco-campus in Limuru, Brackenhurst (2 weeks).
Internships:
- EDU Africa is offering 8-week internship placements based at EDU Africa’s learning center. Interns are linked to mentors and initiatives in the participants’ chosen field. Opportunities include environmental monitoring, social research, reforestation and carbon capture, women’s empowerment, education, entrepreneurship, and others.
Service Learning
1-3 Month placements for groups and individuals within a working conservation and research initiative based in the Pardamat Conservancy.
Research Placements
The Maasai Mara has long been a source of vital environmental research relating to wildlife movement, endangered populations, and climate change. With the growth of the community conservancy model, there is also a need to conduct social research and impact assessments from an anthropological perspective. Students engaging with postgraduate research have an opportunity to use the learning hub along with its community and supporting infrastructure to conduct fieldwork towards the research component of their studies.
Victoria Falls Wild Hub, Zimbabwe
As a key buffer area between National Parks and local communities, Victoria Falls Wild Hub (VFWH) exists to facilitate efficient conservation efforts for the land, wildlife, and people in and around Fuller Forest.
Nestled in Fuller Forest, the hub consists of 10 permanent safari tents that can sleep 4 to 6 people. It is an unfenced camp within 2,000 hectares of prime forest area, surrounded by beautiful flora and fauna. VFWH is only a 20-minute drive from Victoria Falls town and a 10-minute drive from Victoria Falls International Airport.
Educational Programs
Custom Faculty-led Programs:
- The EDU Learning Centre at the VFWH, creates the ideal base for custom faculty-led programming spanning a broad range of fields including health sciences, social sciences, environmental sciences, business studies, and more.
