January - March

Visitors to the LWC:

The Limbe Wildlife Centre (LWC) is host to many visitors every week; the centre is open from 8:00am to 5:00pm, every day of the year. As the Centre has improved
and grown, it has started to focus on educating as many people who visit the
centre as possible. With over 30,000 people visiting the centre last year we have
a great opportunity to inform people of the importance of wildlife conservation and environmental protection.

We have started to record the number of visitors to the centre and have discovered that it is a diverse group who visit. The Centre received an average of over 3400 people monthly (both nationals and non-nationals) including several school groups visiting the LWC.

Visitors for the past three months (January to March).

Not withstanding the decline in trend of visitors during this period, the Centre is consistently having on average 2,500 visitors monthly. The total of approximately 8,950 visitors comprised both nationals and non-nationals.

This included nine special groups such as the American field students from Washington.

The Centre also welcomed 22 primary and secondary school groups numbering some 1500 individuals and four University groups comprising 129 individuals.

April - June

In April the education unit organized the annual in-house staff training workshop for and with the staff of LWC. The workshop is an opportunity for the keepers to give a presentation about their work areas and their animals. These presentations help the staff to receive training on their presentation skills, to exchange knowledge about
the animals and the specific challenges every area faces. All areas including the veterinary clinic and the food room had 15 minutes for the presentation and 5
minutes for Q&A. All active participants received a certificate at the end of the 3
day workshop.

PASA education conference

In May Joseph Mulema was sent to participate in the second PASA Education workshop at Chimpfushi Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Zambia.

In June both Anthony Chasar and Vincent Fomba were able to attend the PASA Management and Vet Conference in Uganda.

Visitors to the LWC

In May LWC received Jane Dewar, a long time supporter of LWC and founder of the Dewar Wildlife Trust. Michelle and Kerry Stumpe, who spent their honeymoon at
LWC, accompanied Jane. The three of them did not only bring equipment and
needed medicines for the Centre but also participated in various work programs and assisted in putting banana stems and branches as enrichment for the animals. All primates - non-human and human-enjoyed their visit and two weeks rushed by for everyone. Especially the gorillas that will miss the daily extra attention Jane was giving them during her stay.

July - September

Visitors for the past three months of 2003

Funds needed for Education program
Due to insufficient funds during the past year we did not go much farther then the Limbe area for our education outreach program. Our initial plans included a school outreach program that would consist of a 1 to 3 day intensive education program.
This program would include a close collaboration with the teachers at each school. Lectures should be made interesting by including games and interactive teaching lessons. Unfortunately we were not able to raise the needed funds, we are
currently seeking funding for this program and are hopeful to carry out this program next year.

5th Annual Limbe Wildlife Centre Holiday Workshop
So we put all our resources together and concentrated on our Annual Holiday Workshop with the theme "Conserve our Wildlife" from the 4th to 16th August.
The goals of this workshop were to:

1. To assist Cameroonian youths and other interested persons to better understand issues on Wildlife Conservation and the need to protect
   Cameroon's unique Wildlife heritage.
   
2. To encourage students to organize and set up a natures clubs at their institutions.

The education unit stayed busy with presenting lectures, teaching songs and poems as well as organizing activities and a field trip for the 195 participants from primary, secondary, high school and university level.

At the end a closing ceremony was held, at this ceremony all the successful participants received a certificate of participation and 16 participants were awarded special awards and gifts ranging from books to T-shirts for exhibiting a extra level of comprehension and excellence.

Special visitors

The Limbe Wildlife Centre was honored with the visit of the American Ambassador and his family on the 9th of July. The Ambassador stated how impressed he was with the new education center building that was partly funded by the US Embassies Self Help Program.

During the Cross River Gorilla Conference held at the Limbe Botanical Garden, His Excellency the Minister of Environment and Forest Chief Tanyi Mbianyor Oben Clarkson and his Nigerian Counterpart the Minister of Environment the Honorable Colonel Bala Mande arrived for a special visit to LWC. They came to meet Nyango in person and
to finally welcome Twigs and Brighter who were repatriated from Nigeria to Cameroon in May.

Selma Forotti, who helped rescue Batek and make it possible for him to come to
Limbe Wildlife Centre, visited Batek and the others in August.

October - December

Visitors for the past three months of 2003

Funds still needed for Education program
Due to insufficient funds during the past year we did not go much farther then the Limbe area for our education outreach program. Our initial plans included a school outreach program that would consist of a 1 to 3 day intensive education program.
This program would include a close collaboration with the teachers at each school. Lectures should be made interesting by including games and interactive teaching lessons. Unfortunately we were not able to raise the needed funds, we are currently seeking funding for this program and are hopeful to carry out this program next year.

Even though the construction of the new gorilla facility takes up a lot of time and attention we still think that education is one of our most important tasks at LWC.
Our education team started a school outreach initiative, and for the start of the
new school year a special program was begun for the weekly Natures Club sessions.

Outreach education
An Environmental Education Workshop for students was organized in collaboration with FOSHRUD-Cameroon on a fortnight basis during the period from October to December. Our intention was to support and encourage already existing
environmental clubs in our area as well as to enhance creation of new clubs in the local secondary schools.

The program had up to 70 participants who are all members of the environmental
club at the Government Bilingual High School (GBHS) in Limbe. The participants benefited and participated in lectures, field trips, slide and video shows.

Lectures were held on the following topics:
1. Why Environmental Education?
2. People's interaction with the environment.
3. The impact of peoples influence on wildlife.
4. How to save Wildlife.
5. The mammals of Cameroon.
At the initial start, participation was low keyed but latter improved due to the attractive movies.

Natures' Club
This popular weekly program on Saturday afternoons was organized for primary
school children. Over 370 children representing about six schools in Limbe participated. They benefited from the following lectures

1) Endangered Species
2) Rain forest ecology
3) How to save wildlife
4) Threats to wildlife

Questions and Answer sessions with keepers, movies on wildlife conservation, games such as puzzles, the eco-chain game, the touch, feel and learn game were some of the outdoors activities.

In December 51 participants were awarded various presents ranging from books to
T-shirts according to attendance and participatory merits. A field visit to the lava-site in Bakingali was offered at the end of the program. These activities were sponsored by the support of the Disney Conservation Education Fund, which
made small funds available to sanctuaries thorough he Pan African Sanctuaries Alliance (PASA).

Visitors to the LWC

The Limbe Wildlife Centre (LWC) is host to many visitors; the centre is open from 8:00am to 5:00pm, every day of the year. As the Centre has improved and grown,
it has started to focus on educating as many people who visit the centre as
possible. With over 30,000 people visiting the centre last year we have a great opportunity to inform people of the importance of wildlife conservation and environmental protection.

More and more visitors are attracted to the Centre through the constant improvement of our facilities. We recorded an increased number on national and
non-national visitors. We were counting in total for the three-month period 11,189 visitors, including 18 groups. This gives an average of about 3729 people monthly.
As usual the 25th December was the busiest day of the year with 2482 visitors,
the majority of them children.

Special visitors

In November DR Colleen McCann the Curator of primates for the Bronx Zoo visited
the Centre.

The institution played host to a delegation of German parliamentarians led by our Honorable vice-president of the National Assembly and the German Ambassador on December 13th.

Even though the construction of the new gorilla facility takes up a lot of time and attention we still think that education is one of our most important tasks at LWC.
Our education team started a school outreach initiative, and for the start of the new school year a special program was begun for the weekly Natures Club sessions.