I'm starting up this blog so I can post bonobo news, bonobo facts and any new and exciting bonobo plans on one rather lovely page!
First of all I want to tell you about some of the projects we support in the field and show you just how far all your generous donations really go.
The Bonobo Clinic at Kokolopori:
Kokolopori is a collection of 25 villages in a remote rainforest region in north central DRC. The Kokolopori Bonobo Reserve is an exceptionally important site for conservation and research, habouring one of the largest known populations of wild bonobos. The indigenous Mongandu people at Kokolopori respect ancestral traditions to protect bonobos, they are working with the Bonobo Conservation Initiative (BCI) to protect their forest while at the same time improving their quality of life. Healthcare is among the most urgent of needs for the local communities living within the bonobo habitat. Life expectancy is less than 50 years, a women's lifetime risk of dying in childbirth is 1 in 14 and a fifth of children die before their fifth birthday. Until 2007, the only access Kokolopori residents had to medical care was an ill-equipped clinic in Djolu, more than 50 miles away by foot or bicycle, impossible for a mother with pregnancy complications or anyone suffering high fevers.
BCI, along with local partner Vie Sauvage, developed the “Bonobo Clinic” program to provide essential medical care to the people of Kokolopori. The clinic has a caring and dedicated staff of 12, including a doctor, a lab technician, and several nurses. Knowing that safe childbirth is key to survival of mother and child, BCI has provided training for local women to become midwives.
Each year more than 2600 Kokolopori residents receive healthcare from the clinic. With the help of these new facilities and their dedicated team thousands of lives have been saved.
The clinic is in urgent need of donations in order to provide continued funding for staff salaries, medicines, medical equipment, laboratory supplies, bedding, mosquito nets and maintenance costs.
With the help of our supporters and thanks to all those who attended one of our fundraising live music or burlesque events in London last year BCI-UK was able to send the clinic £3624 - rather excitingly that's equivalent to five million Congolese francs!! These vital funds will pay the salaries of the doctor, the lab technician and the nurses at the clinic for the next 3 months. Thank you all for your pennies and pounds, it really does make a big difference.
If you would like to make a further donation to help support the Bonobo Clinic, please donate here.
Each year more than 2600 Kokolopori residents receive healthcare from the clinic. With the help of these new facilities and their dedicated team thousands of lives have been saved.
The clinic is in urgent need of donations in order to provide continued funding for staff salaries, medicines, medical equipment, laboratory supplies, bedding, mosquito nets and maintenance costs.
With the help of our supporters and thanks to all those who attended one of our fundraising live music or burlesque events in London last year BCI-UK was able to send the clinic £3624 - rather excitingly that's equivalent to five million Congolese francs!! These vital funds will pay the salaries of the doctor, the lab technician and the nurses at the clinic for the next 3 months. Thank you all for your pennies and pounds, it really does make a big difference.
If you would like to make a further donation to help support the Bonobo Clinic, please donate here.
Absolutely brilliant work! Community focused conservation goes such a long way in the Congo. Great to see bci UK and Britain getting behind bonobo conservation (and saving human lives!).
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