- focuses on education, community empowerment and conservation
The initial inspiration of establishing African Bush Camps (ABC), a luxury safari operator was to address the imbalances, prejudice and injustices to the people, land and wildlife where the company operates: founder and chief executive officer Beks Ndlovu has emphasised.
Starting the operation of his first camp in 2006, Ndlovu says it was not just about serving hospitality and global tourism, but an opportunity to create something from tourism that will be transformational to the communities that live on the brink of poverty.
This he says, led to the establishment of African Bush Camps Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation that works with communities surrounding ABC, striving to improve quality of life and foster long term preservation through its various programs.
Ndlovu said they started on a commercial side of the business giving away 1% of their total turnover to the foundation to ensure that it delivers to these communities.
The foundation focuses on three pillars, being education, community empowerment and conservation which are its basis for existing.
“So, these critical pillars form the basis of the work that we do as a foundation in each of the areas that our safari camps are located,” Ndlovu recently said in interview at Atzaro Okavango Camp where they hosted the media to appreciate some of these projects.
Tackling education as a pillar, Ndlovu said they realised the need to address factors that lead up to the same reasons as to why education is affected by the remoteness of these communities.
“How do we expect children to be educated when they have to walk 10km each morning to school on an empty stomach. So, we began by addressing all those issues step by step. In some of the locations where we have schools that we support, we would feed the entire school, at least one meal a day so that they have energy in order to concentrate and have a reasonable chance at being able to be educated.”
The pillar of community empowerment includes creating enterprises meant to help these communities to be able to feed and empower themselves for them to be able to support their children and future aspirations.
To highlight, in Ditshiping where ABC operates Atzaro Okavango Camp, the foundation is currently establishing a community garden which is a farm to table project, where they sell 40% of the produce and 60% goes back at feeding ensure balanced nutrition within the community.
“We are fully funding the development of the project, upskilling those interested in working at the farm. A year from now, we will hand over the enterprise that is fully fledged and operational to the community for their benefit, and we will continue to trade with them commercially and from there they can sell as much as the market demands,” the CEO explained.
Also, in its efforts of ensuring access to clean water, the foundation has also drilled a borehole in Ditshiping to augment water supply.
Ndlovu emphasised this is to make sure that they have clean running water so that children and women do not have to carry loads of water sacrificing and exposing themselves to the dangers of wildlife.
“All of these projects mean that a community is starting on the right footing and has a fair chance of being able to walk itself and get out of the cycle of poverty. That is the work of the foundation, to uplift these communities. It is important that by the time we leave these communities we do so in a better place than we found them.”
