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Camps
Zambia
Malawi
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Destinations
Zambia
Malawi
Community
Development
Our investment and commitment to empowering local people through community development in Africa is a strong element that runs Green Safaris lodges and camps.
These are the communities with whom we share pristine wilderness areas in Malawi and Zambia – they are a major part of why our love for Africa.
We see our properties as a means to that end, allowing us to offer an authentic experience for you and those you meet along the way. Each property supports at least one community project.
Katundu
Workshop
The Katundu Workshop is a socially conscious organization that provides a sustainable income for the local community – particularly women – through artisanal training using locally sourced, upcycled materials to create stunning interior décor.
Throughout the rooms, houses and main areas of Kaya Mawa you will find statement pieces handcrafted by the creative artisans at Katundu. In this way, discarded materials from the lodge are upcycled rather than being taken away to be recycled or worse still, simply thrown away.
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Healthcare
St Peter’s Hospital provides care to around 15 000 island inhabitants, along with thousands of Mozambican and Tanzanians who often arrive in a critical condition. Due to limited health infrastructure and resources on this remote island, patients with severe illnesses often need to travel 10 hours by boat to Mzuzu or 25 hours to Lilongwe.
Likoma Conservation Foundation has funded the renovation of the hospital pharmacy and five staff houses, construction of a new patient shelter, and procurement of necessary medications and medical equipment. Several existing staff members have been further educated at university-level and a new nurse has joined the team to improve medical treatment and care provided by the hospital.
We have sponsored Ufulu, a charity operating on Likoma Island, which aims to end ‘period poverty’ by providing women and girls with menstrual sanitary solutions that are safe and healthy, ecologically sustainable and restores dignity.
Community
Garden
Only simple farming practices have existed on Likoma Island due to limited soil fertility, rainfall, and resources for local people to begin farming.
That’s why the Likoma Conservation Foundation has supported five women in establishing a community-run garden that supplies Kaya Mawa and the surrounding villages with fresh produce and poultry. This initiative promotes good nutrition within the broader island community, encourages alternative agriculture and chemical free farming and local women are empowered through sustainable livelihoods.
Training focuses on farm management principles and working with the environment as well as small business management and profit models for subsistence farmers. To reduce dependence on outside funding, the garden team no longer receives a salary and runs the garden self-sufficiently.
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Young Mothers
Program
Apart from sharing their communities’ struggles over limited resources like electricity, water or jobs, most women face systemic gender discrimination. For single mothers, resources to help them move forward with personal development and literacy are scarce on Likoma Island.
Together with the Malawian organisation, Empowering Young Mothers, we have initiated a program to equip young mothers with skills and confidence to inspire their lives ahead. Astute, capable and inspiring women from Likoma Island were identified for and trained to lead the program for the women in their community.
At the heart of the program is the creation of a space where each woman can feel free, included and safe to express herself, while enjoying the opportunity to work for social change.
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Ila
Community Farm
This inspiring community farm was founded and remains funded by the Green Safaris Conservation Foundation.
The farm is fully sustainable, organic and with the long-term goal of providing fresh produce for the community and lodges in the area. It is located near the entrance to Kafue National Park within the Mulendema Chiefdom, and is about a one-hour drive from Ila Safari Lodge.
When you stay at Ila, many of the ingredients on your plate are fresh from this farm. That means there are almost zero transport-related carbon emissions and positive promotion of sustainable livelihoods within the community.
A second goal of this farm is for it to be a demonstration farm, where the local people learn how to do regenerative farming in balance with nature.
Get InvolvedHIV/Aids
Awareness
Staff members at Tongabezi Lodge have joined the Aids Council of Zambia and Share, an American funded public private partnership, in the global fight against HIV/AIDS.
Our representative belongs to the committee that oversees HIV/AIDS related programs in the accommodation sector of the Livingstone’s tourism industry. Two team members are peer educators. Whilst our program includes various group activities, a one-on-one meeting with individuals have proven to be most effective.
The project has succeeded in breaking the silence and enabling more staff to go for voluntary counselling, testing and if needed, anti-retroviral treatment. HIV/AIDS has become something everyone feels comfortable discussing around the Tongabezi lunch table.
Mponda Check dam & Communal Garden
To create water and food security in balance with nature, a check dam was built by the Mponda community. This dam slows down the rainfall-fed river, so that it mimics the way a forest works: giving rainwater time to infiltrate the groundwater. By increasing the groundwater levels, wells can be dug right next to the dams. The Mponda dam has two communal gardens, tended to by over 30 women. They are now able to grow fresh vegetables year-round, as opposed to just during rainy season!
Mukuni
Organic Community Farm
Our Green Team is working with the local community members of Mukuni Chiefdom, just outside Livingstone, on turning 12.6 hectares of degraded land into a regenerative communal farm. With Chief Mukuni’s blessing and the community behind us, we hope to turn it into a fully sustainable, self-sufficient, organic community farm which provides livilihoods and food security for the community. Already, the vegetables found on your plate at Livingstone Island, are from organically grown at the Mukuni Community Farm. Our second goal is to take this farm and make it into a learning centre for the people of the Mukuni Chiefdom.
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