Having trained as a lawyer, I often get asked when and why I started making jewellery.
What many people don’t know is that while I’ve always been mesmerised by different forms of adornment that I’ve encountered during my travels around the world, I never actually thought about making jewellery until I started working in the field of wildlife conservation.
This post joins all the dots as I share images about one of my biggest passions – African wildlife and how I started to make jewellery to raise funds to support the animal orphans that I helped to raise. I hope you will enjoy this pictorial insight into my story, and may it inspire you to follow your passions too!
While working on a community based conservation project bordering Tsavo West National Park, one of my favourite roles was to look after and raise the orphan animals that came through our doors. They were generally the victims of poaching, the bush meat trade, and human-wildlife conflict. They ranged from primates to small cats and various antelope species.
The role of mum involved all the normal tasks you would expect from feeding and cleaning them to ensuring they were kept warm by lining their beds with hot water bottles wrapped up in towels, and of course giving them plenty of TLC. And just as most mums do, I also had to wake up several times during the night to repeat this process!
As they grew up, they also made some unlikely and unexpected friends.
The aim was to raise the orphans and rehabilitate them back to the wild. When they were old enough, I’d take them out on walks to start to re-introduce them back to their natural habitat and familiarise them with the sources of food they should look for. Fortunately animals are a lot smarter than we sometimes give them credit for – they are born with that innate hunting instinct or tend to have a knack for knowing what vegetation is suitable for them to eat.
I continued to raise funds for environmental conservation causes even when I moved to the UK to complete my legal education and while working in the corporate world. I have made and sold jewellery to support charitable causes spanning from Africa to South America, including a non-profit initiative called “The Lost World Project” which involved an expedition to Mount Roraima, Venezuela, in 2010 to document the conservation needs of this ecologically significant region, and to support international efforts to secure UNESCO world heritage status for Mount Roraima.
I am still committed to supporting conservation initiatives through my business, which include the Mara Predator Conservation Programme, the Amboseli Trust for Elephants, Ol Pejeta Conservancy, amongst others. For more information on the causes we support, visit our impact page.
Thank you for following and supporting me on my jewellery journey.