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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