PROJECT ‘IZIKO’

By: Melissa Mc Alpine

Afew months ago, Richard Randall and Casper Bester teamed up to form Strandveld Adventures – an association aimed at providing locals and visitors to Stanford with fun and exciting outdoor activities such as hiking, canoeing, kayaking, zip-lining, quad biking, whale watching and more. Both Richard and Casper have experience in the tourism industry and share a love for the outdoors.

“The reason I started the project is twofold - to give something back to the tourism industry for my 17 years of guiding, and to uplift members of Stanford South by training them as guides in the village,” says Richard.

Both Richard and Casper have a desire to help underprivileged youngsters wanting to get ahead in life. Paying it forward is their way of giving back to the community.

As with anything, initiating such a project takes a certain amount of funding. Richard reached out to the Overstrand Municipality, but when no assistance was forthcoming, he sought and found assistance elsewhere.

The second step was to create a suitable training curriculum so that successful applicants would have a solid foundation from which to grow. Once trained, guides will be able to manage guided nature walks, conduct walking historical tours of the village, do environmental talks, and possibly even run educational workshops. Safety and risk management will form part of their training so as to minimise potential hazards associated with adventure activities. In conjunction with Livingstone Tourism Academy, Richard prepared a training manual.

Step three was inviting interested applicants to apply for the course. After receiving a number of applications, Richard and Casper worked through each one to source the two most suitable candidates. Once this was achieved, the two successful applicants were contacted, leading on to step four of the project – training, which started at the beginning of May.

According to Richard, training sessions are going very well, and they will be starting on the practical training side of things towards the end of June. The aim is to have the final assessments, first aid and Tour Guide registration completed by the end of October. Once they’ve successfully completed the course, the two guides will be employed by Strandveld Adventures and will conduct guided tours of the village, including the wandelpad, Phillipskop, and surrounding areas.