Dobrotvorna organizacija dijeli pogodnosti turizma sa zajednicama u Tanzaniji

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Avatar Linde Hohnholz

Tourism stakeholders are set to convene in South Africa next month at a symposium to deliberate and identify strategies geared to get the best practice in cultivating sustainable and peaceful communit

Tourism stakeholders are set to convene in South Africa next month at a symposium to deliberate and identify strategies geared to get the best practice in cultivating sustainable and peaceful communities through tourism, culture, and sports.

Organized by the International Institute for Peace through Tourism (IIPT), the symposium has been dedicated to honor the legacies of the world’s three champions of Non-Violent Resistance – Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Counted as a new engine for economic development in Africa, tourism is as well a global industry which brings people together to create peace through multi-cultural and multi-racial interactions.

Poverty and poor relations between local communities and wildlife conservation authorities had so far caused unprecedented conflicts between the two sides in areas that neighbor tourist parks in Tanzania, threatening smooth development of tourism in this part of Africa.

Villagers neighboring the two famous wildlife parks of Tarangire and Serengeti in northern Tanzania, poisoned and speared to death over a dozen lions, while others threatened to kill wild animals in the famous Serengeti National Park in protest over inappropriate tourist fees.

Standing as the best tourist destination in East Africa, Tanzania is among the poorest nations in sub-Saharan Africa, and local communities that neighbor these wildlife parks are rising up to demand a share from tourist benefits.

But several charity organizations, including the Singita Grumeti Reserves on the western corridor of the Serengeti National Park, are now giving back its tourism gains to the local neighboring communities.

Singita Grumeti Reserves is a 350,000-acre private concession bordering Serengeti National Park. A special fund, the Grumeti Community and Wildlife Conservation Fund, was established in 2003 and targets local communities.

Under the ownership of an American investor, Tudor Jones, the Singita Grumeti Reserves have since then share tourist benefits and gains with local communities through poverty reduction initiatives, provision of education to children from poor families, and clean water supplies.

The Singita Grumeti Fund’s community programs are implemented by its department – Community Outreach Program – with four main activity sectors, namely Education Support, Small and Medium Enterprises Development, Conservation and Natural Resource Management, and Water Resources Development.

Community development programs are currently targeting education to children, development of small enterprises, assisting government in its effort to provide clean drinking water, and enhancing awareness of conservation and sustainable of wildlife in the Serengeti plains.

These programs are aimed at stimulating and sustaining the rural economies, and teaching skills that will enable the communities to generate products required in the area, both for the local residents and for the lodges at Singita Grumeti Reserves, thereby creating a self-reliant business environment.

Since the Community Outreach Program was tasked with implementing projects to support the community around the concession area more than ten years ago, a lot has been done and achieved in the four sectors.

The community has enjoyed education support, whereby almost 200 students were sponsored in different learning institutions from primary school to university level.

The Community Outreach Program allocates each year a budget to support social projects in the community. There are localities which border the concession in Serengeti and which enjoy the support of the Singita Grumeti Fund through the outreach program.

In 2013, the budget allocated by the Community Outreach Program to the community in the focused areas was US$600,000. The money has been directed to support different sectors in the community and among them are student sponsorships in different institutions.

The Community Outreach Program is doing a lot to support communities in education, whereby 8 university students were sponsored and set to complete their studies in 2015 and 2016 respectively.

Through benefit-sharing from tourism gains, local communities in the area are currently counting the benefits of wildlife and conservation out of Tanzania government’s funding.

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Avatar Linde Hohnholz

Linda Hohnholz

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