How to wake a sleeping lion

Finding an Honours student who has time to spare is rare, but it is even rarer to come across one who makes the time to start a non-profit company in the same year.

Dean Carlisle founded Lessons in Conservation (LIC) in 2018 while completing his Honours in Zoology at the University of Pretoria. Fuelled by his passion for the environment, Carlisle realised the need to pass the flame to younger generations. “The idea was placed on my heart to teach one group of 20 children and take a few of them on a game drive,” says Carlisle, of his original vision. Carlisle aimed to create environmental awareness and provide practical experience for children from underprivileged communities. Little did he know that his dream would soon burst to life.

LIC started small, with a handful of students whose love for the environment matched Carlisle’s. “I started helping out with anything that I could – whatever I could, whenever I could,” says Robyn De Villiers, one of the earliest members. De Villiers was LIC’s first Media Manager and has since handed over to Megan Carlisle. The team grew rapidly after starting a Cape Town-based team in 2018, and quickly expanded into Tanzania, Malawi, Swaziland, and South Africa. LIC now has seven teams in four countries, an impressive feat for a student-run organisation.

The company’s overarching ambition is to bridge the gap between people and wildlife. Their logo displays a baobab tree, a pair of clasped hands and a lion. “It’s meant to show that for us to conserve the land [the baobab] and the wildlife [the lion], we need people [the shaking hands] to work together,” says Carlisle. LIC aims to educate local children who have limited understanding of conservation through a series of six lessons and a game drive. Dave Rodel, the Regional Manager of the Gauteng team, is particularly proud of LIC’s third goal: to identify outstanding children in the communities, who are sponsored to do a Field Guide Association of South Africa (FGASA) course. This provides opportunity for future employment in the world of conservation. “We call them sleeping lions. So, they’re sleeping lions in the community, then we go in and wake them up to help them become conservation warriors,” says Rodel.

The path to becoming a conservation warrior has been well-worn by LIC, as they take their syllabus very seriously. Each of the six lessons link in some way to the goals of the company. “One of the themes I wanted to carry through was that children need to learn lessons from nature that they can apply to their lives,” says Carlisle. “One of those things was teamwork, so that’s where [the lessons] started off, understanding food chains and how everything is linked”. The shaking hands on LIC’s logo are a nod to this value. From early beginnings, LIC’s syllabus is now firmly established, having been approved by numerous teachers.

The difference in the children from the start of LIC’s teaching week to the end is astounding. The way they think and the way they see things changes drastically, proving that knowledge is indeed power. De Villiers highlights the importance of teaching children “why animals are important in the ecosystem and why they’re important for us, beyond just food purposes – why they’re important for the land”. According to many members of LIC, caring for one’s environment is the most basic form of humanity. “We mustn’t forget about our roots, and the fact that we are very reliant on nature. Without it, we wouldn’t be here,” says Rodel. It is a point of pride for Rodel that LIC reminds children of the importance of cultivating respect and appreciation of the environment.

Carlisle has recently launched LIC Schools, where LIC team members instruct high-school children on how to teach the LIC syllabus. The fledgling teachers are then able to go out and teach actual lessons on their own. The programme, while still in development, is an example of the impact that youth can have on their own peers. The youth are teaching the youth, proving that the more one learns, the more one is equipped to affect positive action.

The global pandemic, ironically, provided some respite for the growing LIC team. Rodel says that moving their team meetings to Zoom increased efficacy, using the time that they could not interact with students to work on internal growth and strengthen their syllabus. Internal growth involved helping the other teams to become self-sustainable. “The teams that we have set up now are building, growing and making sure that what they’re doing is of the highest possible quality,” assures Carlisle. The team is looking forward to a bright future; Carlisle hopes to expand into Kenya and Rwanda in a few years. He also highlights their drive to form fruitful partnerships, so that LIC’s focus can remain on teaching children without the distraction of fundraising.

“Educating children about the environment is extremely important because they’re the custodians of the future,” says Carlisle. “If they don’t learn to understand and love nature, the environment has no future. Their actions will be the ones to make or break the world”. Lessons in Conservation certainly teaches a valuable lesson: the youth, a powerful and enthusiastic demographic, will shape the future.

Photograph by Elizabeth Burchmore.