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The Camps have helped form a grassroots organization dedicated to community support and to the conservation of wildlife. This is being achieved through long-term community partnerships. Established in 2006 the Foundation is an independent entity that supports specific projects in the areas where the Group has a presence. The Foundation is trying to cover a wide range of different projects. These projects include education, supporting small local, eco-friendly businesses and initiating land use plans. Other initiatives being undertaken are - Environmental initiatives that aim to conserve community resources, community health care and conservation awareness. Many communities, especially in the rural areas where we operate, are poor and lacking in education. They may not even be aware of their basic rights to land, water and honest leadership.
With more than a decade's experience in Tanzania, we believe the most successful projects are those initiated from within a community - rather than those imposed from outside. A selected community must be able to articulate its issues, needs and vision to the Foundation, rather than simply being handed a solution. Each community is unique. The challenge for the Foundation is to evaluate sensitively the status and progress of each community's capability as well as to monitor and help guide the individual projects. Honesty and commitment have to be evident on our part too. This means constant evaluation of our own progress - and sometimes admitting we've got it wrong. This means setting long-term goals - with enough immediate short-term results to encourage.
By encouraging self-awareness and good leadership at a focused, grass-roots level, the Foundation envisions that our partner communities will pull themselves out of poverty. This will therefore achieve sustainability for the projects and at the same time, the communities will become stable, imaginative and progressive contributors to the preservation of the country's wildlife and wild places.
Helen and Katharina, the Swedish sisters that founded Matemwe put great emphasis on their relationship with the fishermen in the next door village of Kigomani. This co-operation still continues today. Besides buying the catch of the day from the local fishermen, the lodge has helped the village to get electricity and clean drinking water. It also assists in financing classrooms for the village school and sponsors promising students for further education. Although tourism has developed in the two decades since the arrival of the sisters, stunning Matemwe, safely surrounded by the quietest and most beautiful beaches of Zanzibar, is still the top pick of the island.
Having grown up in Africa, the founder of this Kenyan safari company realised he could help local families owning plots of land which adjoined the overcrowded National Parks. He asked if they wanted to help create wildlife-rich conservancies and safari camps which would generate them income and offer tourists a real off-the-beaten-track experience. It was a risk but the Maasai people got behind the idea and helped make it a success. As they are private, these conservancies have fewer restrictions than the parks, meaning visitors can do walks and night-game drives and benefit from the first-hand knowledge of the guides.
We invite every traveller who books a holiday via us to send in a review. Because we don't run the holidays they're completely independent and unedited... remember to read between the lines though, as two people on the same holiday can have different views!
