Fashion brand BOSS backs elephant charity

The brand has chosen to support the charity to raise awareness of the challenges that African wildlife face and showcase the beauty of the ‘African Big Five’; elephant, rhino, buffalo, lion and leopard, through a unique new clothing collection.

Back in 2007, Dr Kate Evans, Honorary Research Fellow at University of Exeter and member of the Elephant Specialist Advisory Group, set up this small charity that’s achieving big things.

Kate is an award-winning behavioural ecologist and conservation biologist who conducted her PhD ‘The behavioural ecology and movements of adolescent male African elephants in the Okavango Delta, Botswana’ through the University of Bristol.

Her career has been guided by a heartfelt promise she made at just seven years old.

She told an elephant that was in human care after losing its herd due to humans that she would do something to readdress the balance.

Kate was deeply moved that this elephant would not have the opportunity to live in the wild with its family.

Thirty-seven years later, she remains committed to her promise.

As an NGO that is committed to conserving the endangered African savannah elephants through research, education and raising awareness, Elephants for Africa is a perfect fit for this campaign.

Based at their research camp near The Makgadikgadi Pans National Park, Botswana, the charity’s small team of local and international experts are extremely pleased to have the support of BOSS, an organisation that understands and recognises its responsibility towards society, humankind and wildlife, and is committed to supporting worldwide access to education.

It is this commitment that has lead BOSS to make a donation, as part of this partnership, to one area of Elephants for Africa’s conservation work; it’s school’s education programme.

These funds will enable Elephants for Africa to continue, and expand, its education projects to share knowledge with local schools, create the environmental stewards of the future, and give the students opportunities to see their wildlife in their national parks as well as meet local role models working in the wildlife/tourism sector; to help them live alongside elephants safely and realise the benefits of wildlife to their ecosystems and economy thus, ultimately becoming the guardians of their elephants and other wildlife.

Kate said: “It’s incredibly exciting to see a leading global fashion brand like BOSS turning its attention to support African elephant conservation.

“Our involvement in the campaign will help to bring conservation needs into focus for an international audience.

“As a small charity, we are continuously working hard to raise funds to keep our projects going, so we are exceptionally grateful for this donation from BOSS.

“We will be able to run our existing education programme partnering with three primary schools further, and expand it by taking our tried and tested methodologies to Motopi Secondary School, into which the primary schools we currently work with feed into.

“This means we can help significantly more children to remain safe when sharing land with wild animals, provide career advice from local role models about working in the environmental sector and give them the skills required to become the environmental stewards and problem solvers of their communities.

“Our sincere thanks goes to BOSS for providing us with funds that will make a real difference to people's live.”