AN UNFORGETTABLE TRIP WORDS James Perkins PHOTOS Ian Carlson Mercedes-Benz Parramatta Financial Controller Lyn Parkes will never forget the moment when dozens of Kenyan students burst into song as she travelled with them on a bus to the Maasai Mara National Reserve. The children were journeying into the park for the first time, despite going to Ole Keene School just four kilometres from the reserve’s Sekenani Gate. Lyn was part of a small group of Australians who made the trip possible in June this year. Denis Grace, owner of Africa with Grace Safaris, organised the project, which was made possible by donations totalling more than $5500, including a generous donation from Mercedes-Benz Parramatta. In total, it funded three buses, lunch for 250 students on the day of the excursion, and the start of construction of a buffalo-proof fence for the school. For Lyn, the impact of the project really hit home as the buses travelled into the park and the students began singing. “They sang all the way to the gate,” she says. “It was important to me that we could actually see where the money was going. We could literally see and feel the impacts of our fundraising efforts. It went straight to those kids. You could see the benefit of what we were doing straight away.” Despite their proximity to Maasai Mara’s Sekenani Gate, most of the students had never visited the park as the $5 entry fee is unaffordable to most Kenyan people. Some of the children were so excited about the excursion that they turned up at school at 6.30am, hours before the trip was scheduled to depart. “We were told that this excursion will be talked about for years to come, and we’re already thinking about how we can do it again, but do it better,” says Lyn. As well as giving the young students an unforgettable experience, Denis hopes that taking them into the park to witness its beauty will help solve the poaching problem that is putting African wildlife at risk. A community project established by an Australian safari guide aims to deter future poachers by taking Kenyan school children into the Maasai Mara National Reserve. MERCEDES-BENZ PARRAMATTA 32 DESTINATION