Beauty and The Endangered Species

Our latest grantee is a prime example of the imaginative, unconventional type of project we get the pleasure of supporting. Use false eye lashes to promote conservation efforts around the Southern Ground-Hornbill in tribal regions of South Africa? We’re in. We are SO in.

This is why we are indebted to Lucy Kemp, a project manager at the Mabula Ground Hornbill Project in South Africa, and the brain behind this genius approach to a conservation campaign. If all threats are man-made, she postulated, then people are the solution — and getting them to care about an endangered bird requires a method both cool and fun.

Her idea: an education roadshow throughout the country’s eastern Cape Province. By visiting every tribal leader, school, clinic, and beer house to talk to people about the Southern Ground-Hornbill, she believes she can provide the information necessary to save this top order predator, revered in many of Africa’s traditional cultures. And now for the whimsy, each person she engages will take home a pair of fake eyelashes to remind them of one of the bird’s most prominent features.

A consciousness raising beauty regime? Yes, please! Learn more about Lucy’s work on her organization’s Facebook page and website, then head over to ours and apply for an awesome project of your own!