Guest blog by Crystal Mustchin
For the last nine years, I have worked and volunteered with a huge variety of animals. Very luckily, I landed my dream job at ZSL Whipsnade Zoo as a Zookeeper earlier this year. My love for rhinos began when I first worked along side them in 2014, and since then I could not imagine my working life without them. It breaks my heart to know of the threats they face, and what we as people have put them through. Humans are the biggest threat to so many animals. We are the only ones who can change this.
I knew I wanted to raise money for rhinos. They are the animal who made me decide to pursue my chosen career. Rhinos are very close to my heart. The work Save the Rhino do is truly remarkable, so it was no real dilemma when choosing a charity to fundraise for. My biggest fear is flying, so I plucked up the courage to book a skydive at the beginning of this year to kick start my charity venture, which I called ‘Jumping for Rhinos’. Since then I have raised as much awareness as possible; appearing on radio stations, in magazines, newspapers and through social media.
My target was £500, and come the day of my skydive I had exceeded this. I was incredibly nervous, but kept reminding myself why I was about to jump 12,000ft from a plane! The whole experience was incredible. I screamed the whole way down and cried when I got to the bottom, out of sheer disbelief and probably the rush of adrenaline! I am incredibly proud of what I have achieved and look to the future with hope to continue raising money and awareness for a very worthy cause.