About us
Visit Natives is a social enterprise and a travel agency with a mission to help indigenous peoples to maintain their culture and traditional lifestyle through sustainable tourism. We believe in fair tourism where nature and local people are respected.
Tourism is an important economic driver in developing countries such as in Tanzania. Our aim is to preserve indigenous cultures through small-scale tourism where travelers visit indigenous communities. Besides creating amazing memories, travelers support the indigenous hosts and the broader community to ensure their traditional lifestyle and indigenous culture.
Why is this urgent?
The Ngorongoro Conservation Area is one of Tanzania’s most visited tourist destinations and a world-famous UNESCO world heritage site. Maasai make up 98% of the resident population in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. While Maasai are permitted to live in Ngorongoro, they don't have any formal rights to the land, nor are they allowed to cultivate. While a few herders own massive herds, the vast majority of the Maasai families live well below poverty levels, and under the increasing need for outside food and livelihood support.
We want to educate Maasai to become chefs and drivers so they can get an additional income from sustainable indigenous tourism in their ancestral lands, so they don't need to move to cities and town to seek work. We think that tourism need to be more fair for the indigenous peoples like the Maasai who live from the land.
How can you help?
You can contribute to this project from different amounts starting from 15€, and you can make some Maasai's dream to come true. It has an impact on the broader community.
When you contribute to the school fees, we give Maasai a job! The Sila College of Tourism in Arusha Tanzania has a cooking school. It's a boarding school for six months. After finishing the studies, the student start to work with visit Natives where he/she will cook for travelers who come to visit Maasai villages in Ngorongoro.
To educate one Maasai chef costs 400€ without boarding school fees. With the boarding the cost is 700€. We can accommodate one Maasai student in our office in Arusha so the first student doesn't need the boarding.
Discover more about us:
www.visitnatives.com
