Grow Community Grow was born on the border of Limpopo and Botswana on a volunteer mission at a counter-poaching unit. A brave start to a big idea.
On a mission to find purpose after the pandemic Camilla Coutts, founder of Grow Community Grow, drove 20 hours across South Africa, to a remote location, to lend her experience to ICORP, The International Coalition of Ranger Protection. There she found a unit of brave and dedicated rangers and an NGO that was making changes to be more community driven, regenerative and figure out how to make economy in the bush without tourism.
After 6 weeks in the bush and many conversations with the CEO, she had consulted, strategized, and planned sustainable strategies and helped manifest their new website in collaboration with Intuition Design in Johannesburg. CEO, Matthew McDonald, motivated Camilla to start her own business helping NGO's grow the same way she had helped ICORP. Thank you Matthew for your encouragement! We wish you all the best growing your community footprint.
You can check out ICORP's site at www.icorprotection.org to support this amazing NGO.
Some of the photos that Camilla took for the website and social media while she was there:
Some copy Cami wrote for the website:
South Africa is facing unprecedented increases in poaching. Conservation and counter-poaching in Southern Africa faces many nuanced, intricate and delicate obstacles. The systemic problems of a developing democracy, human population increase, habitat decrease, a scarcity of resources for both human and animals, soil erosion, deforestation, a lack of awareness and education of the necessity of ensuring biodiversity - and on the frontline we have Rangers, risking their lives for the preservation of the environment.
Traditionally counter-poaching has taken on a militarized approach, but as the world changes, so too must the role of the Ranger. Rangers are at the frontline of the most important battle we face on the planet, the intersection between humans, animals and nature.
We can no longer look at counter-poaching and conservation through a reactionary lens, a holistic and integrative system is needed. ICORP aims to provide this - joining the movement of regeneration and sustainability, tackling the problem of poaching and conservation from its roots by teaching our rangers, and through them, communities and individuals to build sustainable and biodiverse economies that will ensure the regeneration of our planet.
Some design work Camilla did for social media and merchandise:
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