Bhejane Trust

    Back in 2008 when we started trying to set up the project here at Sinamatella, we were working under the name DART – Dete Animal Rescue Trust. We did this with the full support of the originator of DART, Paul de Montille, who had emigrated to Australia and was no longer able to run the organisation himself.  In 2012 Paul returned from Australia for the dry season and took the running of the organisation back into his own hands, working out of Umtshibi, close to Main Camp. In October Paul asked Planete-Urgence, the French agency whose volunteers we have worked with since 2009, to stop sending volunteers to us at Sinamatella and confine their operations to Umtshibi. The Planete-Urgence volunteers have played a major part in the success of the Sinamatella Parks assistance project and we were sorry to lose them. 

     When our link with DART was broken, we set up a new Trust and began new negotiations with Planete-Urgence to run volunteer ‘missions’ for them at Sinamatella and at the Zambezi National Park close to Victoria Falls. After months of painstaking planning, it now seems that Planete-Urgence will once again be working with us in 2013, ‘us’ in this case being our new organisation, the Bhejane Trust. Bhejane is the Ndebele word for Black Rhino. The Trust is legally registered in Zimbabwe and has three trustees – myself, Trevor Lane from Victoria Falls and well-known safari operator David Carson whose camp “Camp Hwange” opened successfully at Shumba in Hwange National Park last year.

     Sue and I will continue to live and work at Sinamatella so long as the Parks Authority finds our presence useful and Trevor will continue to work with the Authority at Zambezi.