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Our tour from Nairobi to Cape Town via Victoria Falls travels through some of the world’s poorest areas therefore a number of activities and excursions make use of locally operated tour companies and guides. As part of our commitment to Responsible Travel and responsibletravel.com we now have incorporated a visit to community based tourism program in the South West of Tanzania. Set up by the tea farmers association consisting of 15,000 tea farmers, spread over 108 villages and is the only tea association in Tanzania that sells tea to a fair trade organization in the UK. We pay a fair tour fee that includes a village development fee. With this fee the villages can build classrooms and buy schoolbooks or medical equipment for the local dispensary. On this tour we have time for a ½ day tea tour where a tea farmer will tell you everything about tea while showing you around their smallholder shamba and the expansive tea estate with its great views.
With our visit to the South Luangwa National park we have selected an accommodation establishment that donates 60% of your accommodation fees paid to the Wildlife and Environmental Conservation society of Zambia and in that way you are contributing to support local wildlife and education for Zambian school children in the conservation of their natural history. We also make use of local guide on the island of Zanzibar to visit the Spice farms as well as our visit to a Masai village.
Local guides are used in Botswana where the Okavango Delta bush trip is an experience in living in the bush as many people in Africa do, and an opportunity to get to know the local culture more in depth. While the traditional cultures of Botswana have used wooden dug-out canoes (mokoro’s) in past decades made from slow growing hardwood trees the local co-operative of polers we use have invested in fibreglass mokoros thereby reducing the number of hardwood tress to be cut down.
We also endeavor to create awareness of endangered wildlife within Namibia by visiting a local cheetah conservation project that homes injured or orphaned cheetahs. Our visit to the Himba tribe in the north of Namibia provide a source of income for the local community and also provide basic food stuffs for the tribe which the group buy together in the local shop and then offer to the tribal elder on our arrival at his village.
In Damaraland, at the Brandberg Mountains clients walk to the well known White Lady rock art accompanied by locals that are now certified guides and are part of The Tsiseb Conservancy providing employment to the local population, this after a local mine closed down in the early 1990’s. On our visit to the Namib dune-fields a knowledgeable guide will introduce you to the local ecosystems and bushman culture. We encourage our passengers to purchase goods made locally, and to be aware that craft market income is the only income for many families. Food is purchased at local markets where possible.
Freeplay Foundation
Finally, as part of our commitment to responsible tourism, we support the Freeplay Foundation. This charity supplies wind-up radios (needing no electrical or battery power) to children in Africa who have been orphaned by Aids or genocide and who are trying to bring up their younger siblings alone and unaided. Each radio costs only £35. It provides these children with health care information and how to obtain free testing and drugs, as well as general education and help on growing their own food crops and advice on issues such as safe pesticides. We aim to donate at least one radio per overland trip to help these children. If you would like to make a contribution towards this and would find it easier to do so before departure (rather than into the collection box on the truck).
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