C.A.R.E. The Centre for Animal Rehabilitation and Education
Baboon & Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre Committed to Rescue, Rehabilitation, Release & Sanctuary Since 1989. Hands on Volunteer Opportunities in Africa with Primates
"We make a living by what we do, but we make a life by what we give." - Winston Churchill
Click the button below to gift the amount you can.
None of what we achieve would be possible without your help, hard-work and teamwork.
Caring for 430 baboons would be impossible without your help and volunteers. Your donations enable us to achieve incredible things for the baboons in our care and our team is mostly made up of volunteers. The volunteers are educated and experienced professionals that have fallen in love with the baboons and project.
Our Managing Director Stephen Munro is a dedicated, humble, passionate, experienced and knowledgeable leader; been in love with the baboons and volunteering for over 15 years.
We have a big team of 14 local staff, 5 permanent volunteer staff-members and 10-20 short-term volunteers which are desperately needed to make a difference to the animals lives.
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C.A.R.E.'s dedicated Managing Director
Stephen Munro
Scottish born Stephen has a Batchelor of Science in Animal Care from the University of Aberdeen and has worked (volunteered) at C.A.R.E. since 2003; first joining as a volunteer as part of his degree requirements. Our late Founder Rita Miljo entrusted Stephen to become the first ever male surrogate at C.A.R.E. to a baboon orphan, Blue. Shortly followed by Scruffy; baboons he successfully released with the social troop formed at C.A.R.E. in 2014.
Stephen, a vegetarian, has always had a life-long passion for primates and animal welfare.
In 2006 Stephen became C.A.R.E.'s Release Manager & successfully released his first troop of baboons. This has been followed with a further 7 releases. Stephen possibly has the most experience globally of rehabilitating chacma baboons and releasing them.
We truly hope we add many more releases to the list. He is very at home in the bush on releases, and also very hands-on at the Centre too. Stephen has lots of veterinary experience and very capable of handling a dart gun. However, he is very humble and a genuinely nice guy with sound ethics. Stephen was Rita's right-hand man and worked closely with her for many years. She trusted him fully with every aspect of running the centre and made him a co-director in 2010.
Stephen became Centre Manager in 2009, followed by Director (co) in 2010. After the tragic death of C.A.R.E.'s founder Rita Miljo Stephen was bequeathed the property upon which C.A.R.E. is built & became Managing Director.
Stephen now runs the centre with his partner Samantha Dewhirst, living onsite with their young daughter Sophia.
Stephen is experienced yet modest & sincere. He has incredible knowledge of baboons and their management; he has patience and is quietly very capable of being an industrious, strong leader of C.A.R.E.
Stephen is dedicated and passionate about the welfare of the baboons in his charge, committed to developing and evolving the centre and giving each baboon a chance of freedom.
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Assisting Managing Director
Samantha Dewhirst
Samantha has a Master of Science in Primate Conservation from Oxford Brookes University and first fell in love with the baboons and C.A.R.E. as a volunteer in 2006 as part of her Batchelor studies.
Samantha has experienced animal husbandry in various animal establishments; she volunteered at the Cotswolds Wildlife Park, Wilmar Animal Sanctuary (E.Cape) and worked at Monkey World (UK) with chimpanzees and other primates and also worked at Chessington (UK). At C.A.R.E. and the local Veterinary Clinic in Phalaborwa Samantha gained additional veterinary skills and is capable of handling emergency situations.
At 19, Samantha volunteered to help Dr Jane Goodall, doing her personal filing at her home, the Birches and also volunteered to assist in their UK marketing office and at book signing events which provided great insight into the 'behind the scenes' of charity organisations. This along with a personal passion for photography, photo editing and website design has enabled C.A.R.E. to evolve into the digital realm of online marketing and education with ease and minimal cost.
Samantha has a passion for conservation and education and worked teaching in a Nepalese Children's Orphanage for a few months before joining C.A.R.E. full-time to help develop the marketing and educational aspects of running the centre in 2011. Due to shortages of long-term staff Samantha was naturally heavily involved with hand-raising the orphan baboons and in 2012 evolved to manage the Phase 1 rehabilitation and also the rehabilitation and integration project of 11 ex-laboratory baboons.
After the tragic death of C.A.R.E.'s Founder Rita Miljo, Samantha took on more responsibilities; over-seeing and Co-Ordinating the Phase I Rehabilitation, was committed to improve policies and procedures and assisted Stephen to plan, budget and project manage the building of new facilities and enclosure improvements. Samantha is dedicated to primate conservation, improving welfare and facilities and ensuring C.A.R.E. succeeds in the mission to provide excellent care, releases the baboons and provides education to local communities and tourists.
The dedicated people on the ground at C.A.R.E. are vital to keep our baboons healthy and their lives enriched. They work hard come rain or intense sunshine. Volunteers work Christmas, Thanks Giving and sometimes well into the night giving life-support to fragile animals in need. They are always on call and all live on-site.
Our local staff are the only team members which get a modest salary, the rest of the team including Directors and Management are volunteers. C.A.R.E. struggles to find funds to care for the baboons; a species which locally are not perceived as an animal worth helping. Thankfully there are lots of passionate, selfless people that are giving their time and lives to work hard for the beautiful baboon orphans in our care.
Jafta, Ross (AKA Small), Fani and Erens are our main animal-care staff that perpare the food, clean enclosures, feed the adult baboons and help generally around the centre.
Mafura (Frans-Zita) change the water of each baboon enclosure every day and Mafura helps with general grounds cleaning/gardening.
Isaac is our builder and he has a helper Abel and Jeffery. Isaac, Jeffery and Abel always have a HUGE list of maintenance jobs and new projects to start.
Netta is our house-keeper; she works quietly everyday ensuring the volunteers have clean clothes and that the human areas are kept clean.
Gilbert is our driver who collects food every day for the baboons.
Our Local African Staff team;
Support our dedicated staff & volunteers
Most of the team are volunteers at C.A.R.E. and even our local staff get a modest salary since we are a non-profit which works hard to secure support and donations.
Any donations of uniforms, clothes, boots, shoes and equipment is essential and so valuable to our team.
You can set up a monthly donation to sponsor or support vital staff salaries;