As promised we are committed to bringing you details about the dedicated team that works along side us within the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust.  The Keepers are globally well known, but with all our different projects we have many dedicated team members in varying roles whose stories we will be sharing over the coming months.

Project Amu

Halima Rashid – Office Administrator

Joining the Project Amu team in February 2011, Halima is the Administrator of the Mukunumbi office on Lamu mainland ten minutes from Amu ranch.  Halima’s family history dates back many generations within the Lamu District, her ancestors having travelled south on a trading dhow from Yemin many years ago, in search for a better life.  Halima is a Swahili-Arab, although her mother is from the local Bajuni tribe.  Her parents remember the days when Mukunumbi was once a hugely successful trading centre, where merchants would come from afar to buy goods from spices to coconuts.

As a child Halima dreamed of becoming a doctor but without the means to advance herself she became a Nursery Teacher in Mukunumbi, supporting the children of her village.  Halima is a single-mother with three children and lives with her parents in the house she grew-up in.  As a Muslim Halima and her family follow their faith in Islam and they feel that their culture and beliefs are as still and strong as they were when their ancestors arrived in Lamu, yet there are key developments to their lifestyle.  Halima was the first in her family permitted to go to school, as girls in the past were not allowed to study.

Halima is deeply rooted in her community and her traditions and is much respected for her cooking skills, making age-old recipes using local spices and coconut milk.  Although Halima is currently the only female on the Project Amu team she is a valuable asset and is relishing her role, feeling that finally there is hope for the future of her homeland through the combined commitment from the community to support the conservation of Amu and the surrounding environment.