Virunga National Park

Virunga National Park’s headquarters at Rumangabo is home to the Senkwekwe Centre, the world’s only facility for orphaned mountain gorillas. With expert staff who provide daily care for the orphans, who were each separated from their family due to the impact of poaching, the Senkwekwe Centre is a unique sanctuary offering the gorillas the chance to lead happy and secure lives in their forested enclosure.

The Daily Routine

As gorillas are large powerful creatures, it can be a difficult task to care for them – and a clear daily routine is important for the orphans.

Wake-up begins around 6:00 am when the gorillas begin to play and receive their breakfast. They are let out into the garden at around 7:30 am where they spend the majority of their day playing and eating. When they were much younger, constant care was needed as they were still very young to be on their own, but today they can be left free without a caretaker within the garden.
At 4:00 pm it is time to return to the enclosure for the night. This entails a bribe of more food to get the orphans back from their playground. Here they remain until the following morning. Dinner comes in the form of porridge with added nutrients and probiotics which is served at around 5:00 pm.

They are put to bed with a bunch of fresh leaves for them to build a basic nest. The leaves come in the form of a wild celery, which is also edible.