Congressional Staff Briefing: Umzi Wethu Event with Andrew Muir of the Wilderness Foundation

7-2-2010

Andrew Muir, Executive Director, Wilderness Foundation

Partner: Wilderness Foundation

Andrew Muir is Executive Director of the Wilderness Foundation, headquartered in Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Over his 21-year career, Andrew has been actively linking environmental and social solutions at critical junctures in South Africa's history. Concentrating on wild habitats, he has understood natural areas as a context for both social and environmental reform. Programs that he initiated since 1987 have impacted on more than a hundred thousand South Africans, dominated by those from previously disadvantaged backgrounds. As an environmental activist and leader who targets community influencers - youth leaders; politicians and opinion leaders - he develops opportunities for extending socio-political perceptions (among youth during apartheid era), reforming environmental legislation (opinion leader trails at birth of democratic governance), developing environmental awareness among emerging young black leaders (Imbewu trails led by previously unrecognized role models) and for activating a future for orphans of the AIDS crisis (Umzi Wethu Training Academies for Displaced Youth). Andrew has won several awards, including the Rolex Award for Enterprise (2008), the Men's Health Awards 2009 (Public Good), EP Herald Citizen of the Year (2008), SAB Environmentalist of the Year (2007), and South Africa National Parks Kudu Award (2007).

Umzi Wethu is a dynamic model for transforming HIV/AIDS orphans and other vulnerable youth that show resilience and ambition -- but despair of any opportunity to support their households -- into skilled and highly employable young adults with secure, well-paying ecotourism jobs. The Umzi Wethu model was launched with a feasibility study that assessed the job qualification needs of Eastern Cape parks and game reserves. It involved partners from the conservation, social development, government, and academic sectors to craft a blueprint put into practice with the opening of the founding Umzi Wethu Academy in Port Elizabeth in April 2006 and the rural game ranger Academy in Somerset East in March 2008. Five intakes have now graduated, with two more classes set to graduate on in mid-July. The Umzi job placement rate for graduates is 90%, with a wide diversity of employers and most in jobs paying well above the average minimum wage.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Andrew Muir
• Wilderness Foundation
• ICCF
• International
• Conservation
• Caucus
• Umzi
• Wethu
• South
• Africa
• AIDS
• Youth
• nature
• health
• environment
• stability
• conservation