30/07/2026
Some of the strongest evidence for a training's impact appears years later, in a place you did not expect to look.
At our recent Western Region Patrons' Workshop, we met a patron whose journey captured exactly what conservation education is meant to achieve. She had first been trained as a Wildlife Club patron at a school in Kiambu, where she developed both the skills and the conviction to lead environmental work among students.
When she was later transferred to a school in the Western region, she did not leave that training behind. She used it to build a Wildlife Club from the ground up in her new school, one that is now active and running. Her story was a reminder that when we invest in a patron, we invest in a body of knowledge that travels with them, wherever they go next.
This is the kind of outcome the workshop, themed "Connecting Knowledge and Practice through Education for Sustainable Development in Schools," was designed to multiply. Through the support from African Fund Endangered Wildlife, we held a two-day workshop bringing together thirty patrons from across the region to build a clearer understanding of why and how Wildlife Clubs should function in schools, not as an extracurricular add-on, but as a structure that serves both academic learning and conservation outcomes.
The workshop covered three areas: Activities suited to each patron's local context, peer case studies on what has worked and what has not, and practical approaches to resource mobilisation and partnerships.
The patrons will return to their schools next term equipped with more than notes from a workshop. They return with a framework suited to their own students, own landscapes, and own communities, one they are now positioned to put into practice.
