Kolby is about to turn seven and wants to use his birthday for an important cause, saving the rhinos. He is collecting money instead of presents for charity.
South Africa – Kolby was introduced to the plight of rhinos during his school holidays. He watched Frank and Fearless, the latest Leon Schuster movie and the sobering documentary Stroop.
These films pushed him to start asking important questions about what can be done to change this. He then decided to ask friends and family to instead give him money for his 7th birthday so he could help protect rhinos. He even asked his mom for more chores so he could save every penny to help with rhino conservation in South Africa.
“Kolby is a young vibrant almost 7-year-old with a love for all animals and critters. After watching the documentary Stroop and Frank and Fearless over the school holidays he has been praying every night to help save the rhinos from the senseless murders just for their horns through poaching. With his birthday coming up on the 12th of November he has decided to have a rhino party and instead of asking for ANY gifts this year he only wants donations to help save our rhinos.
Kolby then started asking what he could do around the house to help raise money and this is how his ‘Help a “little buddy” back a rhino’ project was born and has since pledged to raise R50 000 and vowed to not stop until he has reached his mark.
Kolby chose The Rhino Orphanage as his chosen charity to help save the rhino’s as he was a big fan of The wild ones documentary and feels that they really look after their animals and that he wants to help them to buy feed, medication, treatment and transport for these young rhino’s so they can survive and grow and one day have babies of their own to add to the population.”
Kolby settles on R50,000 as that is what is needed to raise four rhino orphans at the orphanage. He hopes with his efforts; he can help many more.
His mom, Jeanine, started researching to help with Kolby’s cause and what she found out was shocking. The project became more than just supporting her son’s dreams; it became about raising awareness.
“So far this year between January and June alone 318 rhino’s have died due to poaching activities alone. The prolonged drought in the rhino country is also having an immense impact and cause of losses to the population of these majestic animals. Stats for Rhino poaching related deaths alone for 2018 stand at 2 and a half rhino’s being killed per day just for their horns through poaching activity.
With the drought and secondary poaching related deaths, this number, in fact, is far higher. And although this figure shows a decrease on previous years if we look at the percentage vs the amount of rhino’s left it actually shows an increase. With 80% of the Rhino population residing in South Africa it is OUR responsibility to do everything in our power to help save these rhinos.”
The Rhino Orphanage is a registered non-profit company and was founded in 2012. The orphanage is the first specialist centre that cares for orphaned and injured baby rhinos with the only aim of releasing them back into the wild.
Kolby has raised R17,336.11 so far and hopes to reach R50,000.00 by his 7th birthday on the 12th of November. If you would like to help him, you can donate to his fund here.
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