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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.
OThat’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, although now it is run by the Nalusanga Community.
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 at the entrance to Kafue National Park within the Kabulwebulwe Chiefdom in Nalusanga, 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.
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.
Chicken
Coop
Around 250 to 500 chickens are to be housed in a large coop built by the Tongabezi Team using the environmentally-friendly sandbag method.
The chickens will be purchased by the Heartland – a Livingstone-based company that trains, supports and provides a market for the sale of broiler chickens. To lower the costs, organic feed will be grown on Mukuni Farm and sold to the chicken coop for a reduced price.
The short-term goal is to expand the project to train our team to oversee two to three local community members each that will rear their own chickens under their supervision. By providing the sub-outgrowers with a small amount of chicks, they avoid the upfront costs otherwise required to break even, as they will be under our team’s umbrella. Each grower can then sell their eggs at leisure and Heartland provides access to a market and market-safe prices for broiler sales.
Our greater objective is for the teams and community to eventually run the business themselves, selling eggs for a cheap price to the community and local lodges like Tongabezi, and the broilers to Heartland.
Mukuni
Organic Community Farm
Our Green Team has taken over an immense 1,274 hectares of sweetveld in the Mukuni area, just outside of Livingstone.
With Chief Mukuni’s blessing and the community behind us, we hope to turn it into a fully sustainable, self-sufficient, organic 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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