Women's Group : Kenya 2019 - Women Travel with a Purpose, Safari to Kenya and African Child Foundation

Today's Schedule

• Arrive at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.
• Clearance with Immigration and Customs and proceed to the international arrivals hall.
• You will be met by your Holden Safaris representative and transferred to Ole Sereni Hotel.
• Dinner at the hotel (early arrivals) and snacks for those arriving after 10pm.

Location Information

• Ole Sereni is located a short drive from the international Airport and combines the best features of a modern City Hotel with the tranquillity of a safari lodge, as the hotel overlooks the Nairobi National Park. Facilities at the hotel include various restaurants and bars, swimming pool, spa and conferencing facilities. Ole-Sereni’s four dining options capitalise on its unique location along the national park, enjoy breath-taking views whether looking out over the infinity pool or from the fourth-floor at Eagle’s The Steakhouse.

Overnight: Ole Sereni Hotel

Today's Schedule

• 08:00 - 09:30 hrs: Breakfast at the hotel
• 10:00 hrs: Depart the hotel for your visit to Kazuri Beads
• 12:30 hrs: Leave Kazuri Beads and drive to Mat Bronze Café for leisurely lunch
• 16:00 hrs: Leave MatBronze Café and Art Gallery
• 16:30 hrs: Arrive David Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage
• 17:00 hrs: Foster parents visit at David Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage
• 18:00 hrs: Return to Ole Sereni Hotel
• 19:30 hrs: Private dinner at the hotel with Father Henry

Activity Information

• Kazuri Beads Factory: This factory was started to help women around Nairobi with regular employment so that they could support their families and educate their children. Meet the women and chat with them about their lives as they work. The jewellery also makes great gifts!

• The Matbronze Wildlife Art Gallery and Foundry  is a unique bronze art gallery featuring a wide collection of fine art sculptures by acclaimed artist Denis Matthews. A haven for contemporary African sculptures, the gallery exhibits and sells everything from elephant statues and lion paw-shaped ashtrays to bronze starfish and coconuts, capturing the diversity of Africa's rich flora and fauna. The cafe serves simple but good food.

• The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust’s Elephant Orphanage -  Interact with the young elephants as they get ready to settle down for the night.

  The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust’s elephant Orphanage is a small charity, established in 1977 by Dr. Dame Daphne Sheldrick to honor the memory of her husband, famous Naturalist, David Sheldrick, the founder Warden of Tsavo East National Park in Kenya. For over 25 years Kenya born Daphne lived and worked alongside her late husband and during that time she raised and rehabilitated back into the wild orphans of misfortune from many different wild species, including elephants aged two and upwards. She is a recognized International authority on the rearing of wild creatures and is the first person to have perfected the milk formula and necessary husbandry for both infant milk dependent elephants and rhinos. For her work in this field Daphne has received several prestigious awards. The elephant orphans raised by the Trust are gradually rehabilitated back into the wild elephant community of Tsavo National Park when grown, a transition that is made at their own pace and in their own time, but usually taking approximately eight to ten years. A number of ex-Nursery orphans have now had young born in the wild. Adopting one or more of these special animals gives them a second chance at living freely in the wild.

• Father Henry Simaro of the African Child Foundation  will provide information about the foundation and what they do. Since 2006, the foundation has clothed, fed, given safe shelter and provided a quality education to over 900 orphans and vulnerable children. Many have relocated and about 400 children remain in Father Henry’s care.

Overnight: Ole Sereni Hotel

Today's Schedule

• 07:00 hrs - 08:00 hrs: Breakfast at the hotel
• 08:30 hrs: Depart for Fanaka School
• 09:30 hrs - 12:30 hrs: Visit the classroom/s and participate in a project with the children
• 13:00 hrs: Packed gourmet lunch to be enjoyed in the dining room at Mt Olive
• 13:30 hrs - 15:30 hrs: Visit with Mt Olive students
• 15:45 hrs: Return to the hotel
• 18:30 hrs: Dinner with the young women students at Ole Sereni Hotel

Fanaka School and Mt. Olive Academy

•  Fanaka School educates preschool children and your visit will provide an opportunity to talk to the teachers and volunteer in the classroom. Mt. Olive Academy is a girls boarding school
• Both schools are run through donations received by African Child Foundation. (AFC)
• Father Henry’s vision is to save lives and try to break the cycle of poverty for as many children as possible. Giving these children a good educations will hopefully create an environment that leads to future opportunities.
• Fananka (Swahili for God’s providence) School, educates preschool children through the 5th grade and all the children are fed two healthy meals a day.
• Mt. Olive Academy is a highly competitive boarding middle school, for girls, grades 4 through 8.
• Through donations the foundation has built dormitories to house over a hundred girls and a mission house.
• A number of the girls have been sponsored in surrounding Secondary Schools and some have gone on to receive degrees in college.

Overnight: Ole Sereni Hotel

Today's Schedule

• 07:00 hrs. - 08:00 hrs: Breakfast at the hotel
• (NOTE: Luggage to be ready for transfer to Wilson Airport in the afternoon)
• 08:30 hrs. - 1030 hrs: Game drive in Nairobi National Park with 16 children in 2 x 20 seater coaches together with 12 women, Father Henry and 4 x teachers.
• 11:00 hrs: Picnic lunch at the picnic area in the national park with the children
• 12:30 hrs: Father Henry, teachers and students return to the school
• 13:45 hrs: Transfer to Wilson Airport for flight departure to Masai Mara
• 14:45 hrs: Flight departure
• 15:45 hrs: Arrive Ol Kiombo Airstrip. You will be met by Holden Safaris driver guides and set off on an afternoon game drive en route to the camp, enjoying sundowners before arriving at the camp.
• 19:00 hrs: Arrive at the camp. Check in and freshen up before dinner.

Location Information

• Mara Ngenche Safari Camp is located on the banks of the Mara and Talek Rivers, in the heart of the Masai Mara.
• Masai Mara is one of Africa’s greatest wildlife reserves. Acacia dotted plains, tree-lined rivers and woodlands are abundant with wildlife and an array of birdlife. Game viewing is spectacular year round; you may see a pride of lions stalking their prey, observe a herd of elephant and their fascinating social structure, or see pods of hippo wallowing in the rivers. The great wildebeest migration is one of nature’s wonders; an estimated two million animals migrate in a year-round pattern through Tanzania and Kenya, following the rain. The annual wildebeest migration is the largest mass movement of land mammals on the planet.

Overnight: Mara Ngenche Safari Camp

Today's Schedule

• 05:15 hrs: Wakeup call with cookies, tea and coffee
• 05:30 hrs: Transfer from the camp to the Hot Air Balloon launch site
• 06:30 hrs: Take off on this lifetime adventure and drift over the Mara plains viewing the game from above.
• 07:30 hrs : Approximate landing time of the balloon at a selected location to enjoy a hot champagne breakfast.
• After breakfast, enjoy game viewing as you return to the camp.
• 13:30 hrs: Lunch
• 16:00 hrs: Depart for your afternoon game drive and enjoy sundowners as the sun sets.
• Dinner at the camp

Overnight: Mara Ngenche Safari Camp

Today's Schedule

• 07:00 hrs. - 08:00 hrs: Breakfast at the camp.
• 09:30 hrs: Set off on your visit to the Ole Keene Maasai Village which provide a wonderful opportunity to interact with the women and marvel at their amazing beadwork.
• 12:30 hrs: Return to the camp enjoying game viewing en route
• 13:30 hrs: Lunch
• Afternoon at leisure before the evening dinner

Local Community Information

• The Maasai are proud pastoralists and warriors. Maasai Chief Ole Nairuko is one of our guides and he also acts as our cultural ambassador. Spend time in the “Manyatta” and immerse yourself in one of earth’s oldest cultures. The ladies and children will entertain you with traditional songs and while at the village see how they all go about their daily lives in a very traditional way like making fire with sticks!
• The Maasai women are well known for their traditional handmade bead jewellery. The women set aside time every day to meet and work on beaded jewellery which includes colourful necklaces, bracelets, and pendants. It is considered the duty of every Maasai women to learn the jewellery making craft. All the tribes' beadwork is made by the women but is worn by both women and men. The beadwork an individual wears will signify their age and social status.

Overnight: Mara Ngenche Safari Camp

Today's Schedule

• 06:30 hrs.: Early morning game drive
• 08:30 hrs: Return to the camp for breakfast
• 09:30 hrs: Enjoy game viewing as you are transferred to Ol Kiombo Airstrip
• 11:00 hrs: Depart scheduled flight to Wilson Airport Nairobi
• 12:15 hrs: Arrive Wilson Airport where you will be met by our representative and transferred to Tamambo Karen Blixen Coffee Garden for lunch
• 14:30 hrs: After lunch visit the Karen Blixen Museum
• 15:30 hrs: Transfer to Ole Sereni Hotel

Museum Information

• Karen Blixen Museum provides a glimpse of typical colonial life in Kenya. The house was once the center piece of a farm owned by Danish Author Karen and her Swedish Husband, Baron Bror von Blixen. The museum gained international fame with the release of the Oscar winning film ‘Out of Africa’, which is based on Karen’s life.
• Karen Blixen was born in Denmark in 1885. She came to Kenya in 1914 to join her fiancé Baron Bror Von Blixen Fincke and they got married here on the second day of her arrival.
• Baron Bror Von Blixen had persuaded her to buy a farm to rear Dairy cattle, but this plan changed, instead they engaged in coffee farming. Karen faced many challenges in Africa; she suffered poor health, a failed marriage which ended in divorce and the collapse of the coffee farm which left her bankrupt. Karen had invested so much in the farm and worried about the welfare of her farm workers, she kept on trying hoping that the returns would improve, but this was never to be.
• During her time in Kenya, she fell in love with an English man, Denis Finch Hatton and his death in Tsavo in 1930, coupled with the failed farming, left her will little choice but to return to live with her mother at the family home in Denmark where she spent the rest of her days. It was at this stage in her life that she seriously started her literary career and wrote a number of successful books Including, Out of Africa, using a pen name, Isak Dinesen. Karen continued to write up to the time of her death in 1962. In 1964 the Danish government donated the house where she lived to the then new Kenyan government as an independence gift. The house opened to the public in 1986 as one of Kenya's national museums. Some of the original furniture has been restored and is on display at the house.

Overnight: Ole Sereni Hotel

Today's Schedule

• 07:00- 08:00 hrs: Breakfast at the hotel.
• (NOTE:  Luggage to be ready for transfer to the Crown Plaza Airport Hotel Nairobi where day rooms have been secured)
• 09:00 hrs: Visit to the Giraffe Centre
• 13:00 hrs: Lunch at the Talisman Restaurant
• 16:00 hrs: Transfer to Crowne Plaza Airport Hotel Nairobi (day room)
• Dinner at the hotel
• Departure transfers to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport based on flight departure times.

Activity Information

• The Giraffe Centre offers the unique experience of hand-feeding these gentle giants at eye level from a raised platform, while watching the warthogs below snuffle around looking for titbits. The centre is the headquarters of the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife (AFEW), a Kenyan non-profit organization, which was setup to raise money to relocate the endangered Rothschild giraffe to safe areas. A representative of AFEW will talk to you about the work they do and how they work to promote sustainable environmental conservation through education of the youth.