Tel. +44 (0)1273 600030 (UK)
We try our best to buy locally only and to support local entrepreneurs whenever possible (e.g. visit local restaurants and local shops to buy the local homemade atchar/condiment as apposed to the bottled industrial version in supermarkets). We support the fair trade policy; our employees and service providers get a good share/salary. 95% of the people we work with are locals. The centre and main beneficiary of our cultural tours are local hosts. Our office team is 50% South African.
We train individuals in needy communities to host our clients and/or to become tour guides. In the last 3 years we have not only created jobs, we have also empowered people to set up there own businesses in cooperation with us. In the Bo-Kaap our tours create an income for women who were previously unemployed or full time housewives. The cooperation with us requires them to obtain necessary business skills, such as writing invoices or creating a bank account.
Our tours help to fund various conservation projects; a local baboon monitoring and conservation project, a Meerkat research project, etc. We only market safari lodges with an explicit environmental/conservation and or social responsibility policy (Sanbona, Shamwari, Aquila). We stay away from controversial adventure tours (e.g. 4x4, quad biking, cage shark diving) but promote eco-friendly ventures (walking tours, hiking trails, hot air ballooning). Furthermore we keep our groups small to reduce the impact on the nature areas visited.
Our unique 'hands-on' workshops (e.g. local cooking classes, African beading, drumming) offer a platform for interaction with locals, while simultaneously providing economic benefit to the hosting community. Popular themes such as crafts, music and cooking are used to promote cultural exchange. For example, on our cooking tours visitors exchange recipes and kitchen anecdotes with their local hosts. Locals are left with a heightened sense of the importance and value of their own cultural and natural heritage. Only through a continually bolstered partnership will we ensure that this incomparable legacy will be preserved for future generations.
One day per week we send a staff member into a community we work with and do volunteer work as well as tour guide training and also to keep in touch with the people we work with in order to better understand their needs and for them to get to know us better. For example, in Kayamandi township we do volunteer and educational work with a local crèche which receives no government funding. We are also going to source sponsorship for material for the crèche.
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!
