Tristan Dummer

There is a small school near Carlisle Bridge in the Eastern Cape of South Africa where, not long ago, the children had nowhere to play. No pitch. No court. No posts. Just open ground and whatever imagination could fill the gap.

I did not build the facility. I did not pour the concrete or paint the lines. But I played a small part in giving it an identity, designing the logos and bibs that the kids would wear when they finally had a place to call their own. And in doing so, I got a front-row seat to something that changed how I think about this community we belong to.

The Beginning

The John X Foundation, the charitable arm of John X Safaris, had been quietly supporting the Carlisle Bridge Farm School for years. Education funding, supplies, the kind of steady, unglamorous work that never makes a headline. But Carl van Zyl and his team saw a gap. The kids needed somewhere to play, and nobody was coming to fill it.

That idea found its way to Robbie Kröger at The Origins Foundation (formerly Blood Origins), a non-profit dedicated to telling the truth about hunting and the people who do it. Robbie saw what this was immediately, not just a construction project, but a story. A story about what hunters actually do when nobody is scoring points or writing press releases. He decided it was worth telling.

What Everyone Deserves to Play Became

Funding came from across the hunting community. From the US, from South Africa, from people who had never set foot in the Eastern Cape but understood that this mattered. Donors like Randy Smith, the Nowlin family, the Wests, Cary Renner, and others made it possible. Kuiu stepped in to fund the production team, Pierre Prins and Rory Allen behind the camera, Sam Revera producing, so the story could be captured properly.

Meanwhile, on the ground, the John X team were burning midnight oil. Rick van Zyl, Clayton Fletcher, Altus De Bod and local tradespeople drove the build across the finish line with a deadline bearing down on them. Douglas Cockcroft at Splitting Image Taxidermy donated sports equipment and jerseys. Juan Pretorius drew up the original facility sketches. Okkie Pieterse helped with development.

My contribution was smaller, but it was the one I could offer. I designed the logos and the bibs, the visual identity that would make it feel real to the kids. Not a hand-me-down. Not charity leftovers. Something made for them, with their name on it.

Why This Matters

The anti-hunting narrative is loud and well-funded. It paints hunters as takers. It is a story told by people who have never walked into a rural community and asked what was needed. What Everyone Deserves to Play proved, quietly, without fanfare, is that the hunting community gives. Constantly. In places that will never trend on social media.

This was not a tax write-off or a branding exercise. It was hunters seeing children with nowhere to play and deciding to do something about it. A sports facility in a place where the nearest town is a long drive and opportunity is scarce. A place to laugh, to dream, to be children. That is what was built at Carlisle Bridge.

The Origins Foundation captured all of this on film. Their documentary shows what happened, the build, the community, the moment the kids saw what had been created for them. It is worth twelve minutes of your time.

Watch the Film

The documentary by The Origins Foundation tells this story better than words on a page ever could. Watch it below.

A Personal Note

I know Robbie Kröger. I have worked with him and The Origins Foundation on other projects. I have seen how seriously they take this work, not as marketing, but as mission. Their platform has steadily shifted the conversation around hunting into spaces where the non-hunting public can see what we already know: that conservation and community run through the heart of what we do.

Carl van Zyl at John X Safaris is the same. His foundation does not exist for optics. It exists because he lives in the Eastern Cape and sees what is needed. The Carlisle Bridge Farm School, the Cape Mountain Zebra breeding programme, the Amasango Career School for homeless boys, these are not PR initiatives. They are commitments.

When I started Ambulo, one of the things I wanted to build was a platform that told these stories. Not the glossy, sponsorship-driven content that fills most outdoor media, but the real accounts of what this community does and why it matters. Everyone Deserves to Play is exactly that kind of story.

Get Involved

The Origins Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit. Their work depends on the hunting community showing up, not just in the field, but in support of the stories that need telling. You can support them through a monthly donation or get your business involved through their Conservation Club.

The John X Foundation continues its work at Carlisle Bridge and across the Eastern Cape. You can learn more about their initiatives here.

And if you are heading to South Africa to hunt, whether plains game, buffalo, or birds, Carl and his team at John X Safaris have been doing this since 1983. They know the ground, they know the game, and they put back more than they take. That is the kind of outfitter worth supporting.