From Kenya To The World
Tuk South
Tuk Tuking around the world, raising money for rangers & telling stories
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Hi! Greetings from all of us here at Tuk South productions, the world's first tuktuk powered film crew.
Why tuktuks you ask? In 2021, Covid had upended all of our lives leaving us unemployed and planless in Northern Kenya. Fortunately, unlike much of the Western world, we still had access to vast tracts of the outdoors. Time spent filming in these areas alerted us to the fact that the people protecting these wild spaces were struggling. The Rangers; the heroes who help maintain the balance between communities and wildlife had taken a hit due to the pandemic, so had their funding.
Armed with only filming equipment and a microphone, how could we help?
The answer was clear. Spend the last of our savings on two tuk-tuks, cover them in sponsorship stickers and make a documentary driving from Kenya to Cape Town raising money and awareness for these legends.
Turns out Africa is very big and Princess Buttercup and Wesley, our humble tuk-tuks, are very slow. For the last 18 months we've been battling our way down south documenting the thrills and spills, using professional grade videography equipment and editing software. Short clips of both our adventures and the inspiring initiatives we encounter en-route are shared on all of our social media platforms. The final edit for this footage will be used to create a documentary of our experience.
All donations garnered from the mission go directly towards providing Africa's wildlife rangers with the equipment, training and support structures necessary to protect the continents vital wilderness. In this sense Tuk South is honoured to be working alongside the grassroots, For Rangers charity to try to achieve this goal.
"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk"
-Ernest Hemingway
the mission
Founded in Nanyuki, Kenya, Tuk South is all about the spirit, grit and freedom of purpose-led adventure travel. Armed with two 8hp Piaggio tuktuks and a very open-ended timeline, we have dragged our unwieldy steeds from their natural tarmac-coated environment in Nairobi’s backstreets across 23,000 kilometres of some of Africa’s most remote, corrugated and pot-holed roads.
It’s been an odyssey of breakdowns, punctures and tired spines. We've coaxed our workhorses through elephants, jungles, mountains, savanna and into the ever hospitable Kalahari and Namib deserts. Who needs four wheel drive, A/C or doors anyway? We've bumped pushed and ground our way past smoking strato-volcanoes and snow-peaked giants, through tsetse belts and tropical cyclones, from the emptiness of the planet's largest salt pan to the meeting point of her oldest desert with the Atlantic Ocean.
And we made it! We’ve reached Capetown. Journey done! BUT can we stop here? Not if we can help it. Stage 2 of the expedition, which will take us and our three wheeled friends across to our sister continent of South America, is already being hammered out and action stations have been manned. If all goes sort-of smoothly and we can vanquish the red tape villain, we will make landfall in November 2023 and will turn our heads to face the southern lands of Patagonia and from there adventure on to the limits of the Arctic Circle and the far North.
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Purpose
Aside from stock fundraising, we've channeled much time into documenting as many conservation, community and sustainability initiatives as we could cover on our slow amble south. We've used social media and the bizarre imagery of our two absurd little vehicles, trundling through some of Africa’s more remote locations, to draw attention to these initiatives and provide a showcase for the invaluable work of people dedicated to conserving the natural world. We want to do our part to bring that world to the attention of a younger audience who in many cases have traded out National Geographic and Planet Earth for TikTok and Instagram. Having set off with this mission, our videos have been viewed by close to 10 million people. We believe that if even a small percentage of these interactions have led to people going outside, and paying attention to the natural world and its guardians, our mission can be considered a success.
The tUK-TUKS
Princess Buttercup - "The damsel"
Wesley - "The knight in rusty armour"
The team
Portfolio
How you can Help
Rangers risk their lives every day protecting Africa’s communities and wildlife. We’ve teamed up with the charity For Rangers who dedicate their lives to raising money and support for Africa’s rangers. 100% of donations to our Just Giving site will be donated to “For Rangers”, these would be greatly appreciated by the rangers tasked with protecting Africas remaining wild spaces.
100% of your donation made to our Just Giving site will be donated to 'For Rangers'
To help fuel our journey, and our Tuk Tuks, you can purchase some merch, a tank of fuel, or even buy Robbie a coffee - he is very grateful
Sharing our story is just as important as any financial support
