Youth ‘give chimp expert hope’
Fee bearing image – Cape Town – 140206 – Dr. Jane Goodall and her stuffed travel companion, Mr H. International conservationist, Dr. Jane Goodall, renowned for her studies on chimpanzee behaviour, visited Westridge Secondary School with the help of Taurus School Solutions to promote her Roots and Shoots Program. Reporter: Zolan Youngs. Photographer: Armand Hough Fee bearing image – Cape Town – 140206 – Dr. Jane Goodall and her stuffed travel companion, Mr H. International conservationist, Dr. Jane Goodall, renowned for her studies on chimpanzee behaviour, visited Westridge Secondary School with the help of Taurus School Solutions to promote her Roots and Shoots Program. Reporter: Zolan Youngs. Photographer: Armand Hough
Zolan Kanno-Youngs
CHIMPANZEE expert Jane Goodall began her speech at Westridge Secondary School yesterday by grunting like the primate before she embraced another instructor in front of 800 curious pupils from 10 schools in Mitchells Plain.
The conservationist was showing how the chimps greet, something Goodall has seen countless times in her National Geographic documented work.
But it is a job the UN Messenger of Peace once thought was improbable before learning a valuable lesson. “My mom said if you really, really want something, you must take advantage of opportunities, you must work very, very hard and you must never give up,” Goodall said.
That effort included working as a waitress to save money for a ticket to Africa while spending countless hours in museums learning everything she could about her dream job. In the 1960s, her study on chimp behaviour in Tanzania would become the foundation for primatological research.
In 1977, she furthered her research by founding the Jane Goodall Institute along the Gombe Stream.
Now she travels the world spreading awareness of her Roots and Shoots Programme, which connects young people from more than 120 countries who work to solve social and environmental problems for humans and animals.
“We have a choice. We can decide what kind of impact we want to make. Roots and Shoots is about you deciding what you’re passionate about. A lot of people tell me: ‘Jane, do you really have hope for the future?’ Yes I do. My biggest reason for hope is you young people,” Goodall said.
Her speech kept the pupils engaged, many asking deeper questions about her career. While Goodall’s work with the primates has required many skills, she said an ability to speak to children was a privilege. “I’m in a quite unique position, quite a privileged position, and my life has enabled me to go to many places, to interact with many different kinds of people.
“I have a gift, the gift of communication. If you have a gift like that in the time of crisis we’re in then you’d be wicked to not use it.”
As Westridge Secondary School principal Wendy Jane Vergotine witnessed, some pupils express interest in joining Shoots and Roots, she said: “… we have given the pupils the opportunity to take learning into another dimension.” Goodall’s visit was arranged by Taurus School Solutions.
zolan.youngs@inl.co.za