About Yebo
Aims and objectives
- To support disadvantaged children in the UK, South Africa and Uganda through animal assisted therapy and primate-based communication activities and creative art
- To support an educational awareness of primate conservation
- To allow children who have experienced trauma in their lives an opportunity to express their feelings in a safe an non-intrusive environment
- To relate human behaviour, feelings and life experiences, to that of primates (our closest relatives)
- Aid the education of primate conservation through a therapeutic route.
- Allow children to have therapeutic benefits of being around animals and observing their behaviour, feelings and social interaction with eachother
- To use primate based communication activities such as art, drama, play and music to aid stimulation of discovering and coping with feelings.
- To raise awareness of the challenges that primates face in the wild and the actions that are being taken to prevent this.
How did it all begin?
After working and volunteering with children from child support organisations and conservation primate projects in South Africa and the UK, a group of people decided to set up an organisation to benefit both young people with emotional difficulties/ social disadvantages and environmental conservation. Working directly with primates, animals and young people was the inspiration for Yebo as well as the input from the founders and volunteers of the conservation projects.
Working directly with wildlife
After seeing many volunteers put their heart into the work that they were involved in on the conservation projects, working one to one with the animals and being involved with the daily operations experiencing environmental conservation, it became clear that all of these things could be having a therapeutic benefit on their lives. Many of them would return the following year, go on to do other conservation and wildlife projects and have what many of them describe as “life changing” experiences. Our experiences led us to believe that being able to have direct contact with wildlife and their environment at the same time can be an amazing, therapeutic, educational and rewarding experience, which can also be beneficial on a reflective level.
It’s aim is to relate human behaviour, feelings and traumas to that of primates (our closest relatives) allowing children to express their feelings in a safe and non-intrusive environment. Our volunteers support the children through a number of activities including art, music,play and drama. The children are able to observe chimpanzees in primate sanctuaries learning about their behaviour and the difficulties that they face in the wild. All of this aims to have a therapeutic and educational experience to benefit the children and primate conservation. Children do not work hands on with primates but are able to have hands on contact with other wildlife from safe and well managed sanctuaries, where we also encourage children to support conservation.
Its objective is to create unique projects to allow young people In local communities to express their feelings through art, drama and music directed towards conservation with the outcome of taking therapeutic and life experiences with them. It aims to enable young people and volunteers to recognise and develop their individual skills to learn, and support conservation projects and wildlife sanctuaries world wide.
Training and support for all volunteers
Our aims and objectives to support volunteers include:
- Support through in depth training on all subjects that they may need support with before volunteering
- Encouragement to develop their skills and interests
- Helping them to have experiences that will benefit their future careers
- Developing their skills to enable them to have a continued involvement in our organsiation
- Supporting them to learn and find their individual skills, and encouragement to use these in a way which can benefit those who they are supporting
- Support them to become coordinators in future Yebo projects
Training before projects
The training that we provide students focuses on the following;
- Play therapy with children
- working with children with disabilities
- Working with children who have suffered abuse
- Primate behaviour and conservation
- Animal assisted therapy
- Music therapy
- Activity planning
- Activity coordinating
- Project coordinating
We also give students the opportunity to train as either a project coordinator during the trips allowing them to further their roles in our future projects. One of our main aims is also to support students progress to help their future careers, and to get them more involved in an active continued volunteering role with our future projects, either in the UK or in Africa.
Coordinator training will cover the following:
- Leaderships skills
- Planning and management
- Communication
- Conflict resolution
- Team building
- Organsiational skills
BECOME A VOLUNTEER
Yebo welcomes volunteers and supporters everyday and looks forward to hearing from anyone with an interest in our work.
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