Celebrating Our Youth on This Youth Day

Youth Day celebrates the contribution that young people made to the struggle for freedom in South Africa. We’ve come a long way since 1976, and as we are all aware, there is still a long way to go. Here at the Trail Food Company, we would like to celebrate and recognise a few points this Youth Day.

The first is some remarkable youth from the greater Acornhoek area in Mpumalanga. These young men and women are the future of South Africa and exactly the sort of people we should celebrate on Youth Day.

We would also like to celebrate Mike Kendrick. Although he’s no longer a youth, he is someone who these youth, in particular, celebrate. Mike embodies the difference that all of us could make in the lives of the youth in South Africa. In the spirit of highlighting the phenomenal work these young people are achieving, under the guidance of Mike, we asked some of Mike’s students at Wild Shots Outreach (WSO) a few questions. These interviews serve to show how we can empower, uplift, and inspire our eager youth.

Rifumo Mathebula – 25 years old

I first met Mike Kendrick in 2016. He was hosting a Wild Shots Outreach programme at a primary school that I volunteered at with the Madiba Youth Organisation. I approached Mike and asked him if I could attend the workshop, and that’s where we first met.

So I did the workshop, which lasted about a week, graduated and then after that, I invited Mike to come to my school. I was in grade 10 at the Frank Maghinyana High School. So I invited him to come and do the same workshop at my school that September.

Before I met Mike, I guess I had a certain mindset about white people, so I suppose I maybe had some preconceptions, but I knew that I was going there to learn something new, and luckily I had a really positive mindset. I was willing to learn whatever I could be taught.

So Mike, to me, is like a father, like a brother, a friend, and a colleague. And also my mentor. He is a part of my life, and I really, really love him because he’s doing such an amazing job, and he’s such a great, great person.

Before I met Mike Kendrick, I would say that I didn’t have any clue about wildlife or about conservation. I didn’t have a clue about photography or anything to do with cameras, and I certainly didn’t have any clue about how conservation and photography could work together.

Through WSO, I learned how game, wildlife, conservation, and the lodge industry all worked together – how the people benefited from their employment there – not just the animals living in the reserve.

And now, I work with Wild Shots Outreach because of that meeting with him and also work with Conservation South Africa as a YES for Youth media supervisor, and I also work with Canon as a photography trainer – all because of Mike Kendrick.

Just recently, I got back from running the Wild Shots Outreach in Botswana on my own, which was my first time there.

I would really, really love to continue working with Mike in the future. And to get more youth involved with these kinds of organizations.

Nothando Mkhombo – 20 years old

I first met Mike when I attended a Wild Shots Outreach Workshop in 2020.

Before I met Mike, I won’t really say that I was doing something. Really, I was sitting at home doing nothing for the second year in a row.

I hadn’t achieved a lot because I only have a Matric certificate. I was hoping to go to university to further my studies but didn’t get the chance due to financial problems.

So, I was sitting at home, doing nothing, and a friend told me about this workshop at a local school called Wild Shots Outreach. I looked Wild Shots up on Facebook and it looked really amazing. There were young black people doing this workshop, I could learn about cameras and wildlife, and so I decided that I was going to go and give it my best.

Meeting Mike has been really great. At first, I didn’t really think that Wild Shots Outreach would mean or become much, but now it’s probably my favourite thing in my whole life!

Holding a camera for the first time while I was attending a workshop made me realise that now “I’m giving photography a chance.”

I feel much more hopeful and want to achieve a lot – in particular, I want to be a chef. I’m not there yet, but once again, Wild Shots is helping me by funding me to get my Driver’s License.

Mike changed my life. In 2021 I started an internship with a programme called YES for Youth through a collaborative partnership with Conservation South Africa.

And finally, last year in November, Mike gave me a chance to start teaching the WSO programmes and assisting Rifumo, thereby giving me a chance to inspire young people in our local communities. When youth from our communities see our photographs, it makes them want to know more about photography and what we are doing. We, as young people, start to believe that we as the youth can actually change the world!

My goal now is to inspire young people in our local communities.

Mike believed in me, and so I started to believe in myself... and now I can say that I can lead the whole WSO workshop alone.

Neville Ngomane – 22 years old

I was at a high school called Acorn Oaks, and I loved photography. Mike came to Acorn Oaks to teach some kids photography, and I really wanted to join in but couldn’t as I was too busy with schoolwork.

I eventually managed to contact him via Facebook and said, “Hi Mike, my name is Neville from Acorn Oaks. I see that you’re doing photography at Acorn Oaks and I love photography. Can I please join?”

Mike replied and said that unfortunately, it’s not possible at the moment, you will need to wait until I come back to your school, which is probably going to be next year. I was like, okay, and Mike said, “just keep on texting me – let’s keep this conversation going.” So I kept on texting him every two or three months, “Hi, Mike. Any chance we could do photography?” And eventually, he said, “Yeah, let’s do photography at your school.” So in 2018, he came to Acorn Oaks, and then we did photography.

He was a nice guy. The first time I met him I couldn’t believe it. You know, finding someone who was willing to offer his time to teach me photography, which I love because to me, photography is everything. You cannot define my life without photography.

Before Wild Shots, I was just a young boy in Acorn Oaks, keen to learn about the wildlife. In about 2012, I started a page on Facebook called Young Photographers. Our aim was to take photographs and help the people in my community by using photography to tell their stories, but I didn’t even have my own camera. So, I would go around looking for people that had cameras and then borrow their cameras to take pictures.

Luckily enough, a few months later, a teacher at Acorn Oaks bought a camera, and then he came to school with it so I used to borrow it to go and take pictures outside.

And then whenever there was an event where they hired me, I would borrow the camera for R200, and then I would go shoot photos and they would give me R500. I’ll give R200 back to the owner of the camera and then the rest was mine. That’s how I started photography. I suppose I loved photography, so I was willing to go out of my way just to get the camera.

So Mike helped me join an internship with GVI where you learn about wildlife. GVI is an organization in Karongwe that brings international young people to learn about wildlife.

So I got an internship with them for three months and did a lot of rhino dehorning with Mike. My first elephant collaring was with Mike.

I have been lucky enough to achieve some incredible things with Mike and Wild Shots:

• In 2019 I won the Young International Environmental Photographer of the Year Award.
• I also travelled to Hong Kong in 2019 with the Elephant Foundation, helping them to organise their conference while Mike was busy in Cape Town.
• In 2021 I did a talk at the Dubai Expo for Canon, talking about me and conservation and what we do here in South Africa.

Those are the big things that we’ve achieved. But there are also small things we’ve done – talks in communities, my community, the Acorn Oaks community, the Ludlow community, and a lot of workshops with other students.

When it came to standing up in front of people, I was a bit terrible, I was scared. So with Wild Shots, what Mike taught me is to not be scared, to stand up, to have self-confidence, you know, stand in front of people to talk about myself, talk about conservation to talk about what I can fight for, in order to make a change in this world.

In terms of my hopes and dreams for the future – I hope that one day I’m going to be one of the best documentarists or best cinematographers in the world, who is going to be telling stories for the people who aren’t able to do it. Conservation stories, wildlife stories. That’s my goal. That’s what I want to do.

I want to tell stories that are rarely told. I want to be the first black young ambassador for Canon – because there isn’t one at the moment, and I’m pushing so hard. If I can do that, it means that I could create a small community where I can help motivate people. At the moment, when you chat with ambassadors, you hardly ever find young black people there.

It’s quite hard for people to look up to white guys because when you go into my community, and you talk about an ambassador – people think that’s only for white people. And if I ask them why, they say it’s because, “look there are only white people, people with money and we don’t have money so we can’t be there or do that”.

I want to change that. I want to break that way of thinking down. I want to show them that we can do this – all of us. And I’m hoping that one day, I’m going to stand in front of people and be that ambassador of Canon for conservation, for rhinos, standing up for positivity, and changing the world.

Another major achievement that Wild Shots has helped me with is that I have come to Cape Town to study for an Undergraduate Bachelor of Arts in Motion Picture Medium at AFDA. Mr. Mike, he helped me out with that. That really helped me out because I get to learn a lot about filming, movies and all that stuff… Which I really appreciate because I grew up in a small town, I was working in a small town. That was me, and now I’ve come to the big city, I’ve met a lot of people, I’m learning a lot, and I hope to graduate at the end of 2023.

Final Thoughts

A previous WSO student, Vusi Mathe, so aptly described an experience seeing wildlife with WSO: “How can you love something if you have never seen it?”

The passion, creativity, and sheer determination of these WSO students leave us in awe. But we’d be remiss if we didn’t give credit to people like Mike Kendrick who make it their mission to change the lives of young people. The difference Mike and his students have made is an inspiration and serves as a reminder that where we can teach, we can also learn.