| country: | Tanzania |
| departures: | Departures from Arusha every Tuesday and Friday throughout the year |
| price: | From US $500 (11 days) excluding flights. Price includes accommodation, meals, internal transport and taxes, and is based on groups of 10-20 people working together - please request price for individuals and smaller groups |
read 3 travellers reviews
the amazing things you'll be doing
This trip combines authentic insights into rural African tribes with 5 days of project work renovating a school.
Your first 5 days will be spent with a special authentic Barbaig tribe. The Barbaig is an off the tourist beaten track, an authentic tribe, conservative in their culture, nomadic, cattle rearing like the famous Masai, with the women still wearing locally tanned ceremonial goatskin gowns. Mix freely with this tribe, see how they sew their goatskin gowns, how they locally pound and grind maize (corn) flour, hold interviews with men and women on how the women manage sharing husbands and why. Chance marriage, circumcision, prayer rituals.
The final 5 days will be spent doing project work renovating either a Primary School or Secondary School building. At the School you manage to mix freely with the students, play football, local dances, teach in the classes, participate in all manual building activities assisted by local technicians and community. You directly purchase all material and make payments to assistants to ensure full use of your cost donations.
Your first 5 days will be spent with a special authentic Barbaig tribe. The Barbaig is an off the tourist beaten track, an authentic tribe, conservative in their culture, nomadic, cattle rearing like the famous Masai, with the women still wearing locally tanned ceremonial goatskin gowns. Mix freely with this tribe, see how they sew their goatskin gowns, how they locally pound and grind maize (corn) flour, hold interviews with men and women on how the women manage sharing husbands and why. Chance marriage, circumcision, prayer rituals.
The final 5 days will be spent doing project work renovating either a Primary School or Secondary School building. At the School you manage to mix freely with the students, play football, local dances, teach in the classes, participate in all manual building activities assisted by local technicians and community. You directly purchase all material and make payments to assistants to ensure full use of your cost donations.
day-by-day itinerary
| Day 1: | Depart Arusha 7.00 am by Mtei Bus from the Arusha Country Bus Station for Katesh via Babati where you will be joined on the bus by a guide, arriving Katesh around 1.30 pm, late lunch, rest, sight seeing with dinner and overnight at a selected local guest house |
| Day 2-3: | Cultural tour to Barbaig tribes |
| Day 4: | Cultural tour to Iraqw tribe |
| Day 5: | Cultural tour to Gorowa tribe, Lake Babati local canoeing, viewing floating hippos |
| Day 6-10: | School Renovation Project Work |
| Day 11: | Depart for Arusha at the end of the tour |
travellers' tales
Highlights were getting to places where few people ever get to go and that you likely couldn't have found on your own. Giving back to a country that gives you so much during your holiday. And having life-long friends out of it. (more)
volunteer travel - what's it all about?
Are you are looking for an adventurous trip with a purpose, or on a gap year or career break? If you want to make a difference in some of the world’s most important conservation areas - and in community projects - then volunteer trips are for you! Volunteers tend to have a sense of adventure, and come from a range of different backgrounds and from all over the world. Edward Abbey said 'sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul'.
Read an article about this trip
Read traveller's notes about the final portion of their trip where they helped renovate a primary school while volunteering in Tanzania. More…
how this holiday makes a difference
The visitors are interacting freely with the local community thereby breaking the racial barriers and hitherto black/white colonial hangovers. Through cultural exchange interviews, both visitor and host learn more about the cultural contrasts, and how the men manage many wives without the usual love hostilities. The men/women will tell/explain the benefits of marrying many wives and traditional reasons of allowing children outside marriage.The visitor will learn more about real African Rural life as lived by ordinary people in the rural areas and know Africa in its real perspective compared to what is depicted in the International News Media. Through service charges to service providers the local women ' guides, family elders/fathers, children in the community earn direct income from tourists, hitherto denied them because of being outside the traditional wildlife tour routes. Through the Village and Local Government Levies and Project Work, the entire community benefit by having the hitherto compulsory contribution project works completed through our programmes. By strictly adhering to proper environmental codes and health conduct throughout our programmes the community gradually psychologically adopt better environmental protection and improved health standards. The Barbaig live in a very arid dry land walk 10km every day to fetch 20 litres of water for family use and take their cows with them for watering. In our Project Work, we are trying to bring water from 20km away to this Barbaig tribe as sympathy for them because the Government , for years has neglected them as customary nomads. They customary use firewood thus diminishing the forests. With water, they can be advised to replace and plant new trees as environmental protection. |
Tourism can be good and bad for destinations & local people. We carefully screen every holiday against our criteria for responsible travel. 'Look behind the brochure' to find how each holiday makes a difference (see left). We don't claim to be perfect - there is no global accreditation - but we've led the way since 2001 and screened 1000's of holidays. We invite every traveller to write a review about their experiences and responsible tourism. This valuable feedback is sent to the people who run the holidays. We keep a very close eye on it and take off holidays that don't live up to our standards. |












The visitors are interacting freely with the local community thereby breaking the racial barriers and hitherto black/white colonial hangovers. Through cultural exchange interviews, both visitor and host learn more about the cultural contrasts, and how the men manage many wives without the usual love hostilities. The men/women will tell/explain the benefits of marrying many wives and traditional reasons of allowing children outside marriage.