Inspiring Wamboma Women Take Their Place in Kilimanjaro’s Tourism Industry

We have been taught to grow well.  I used to have to buy food, but now my family eats what I grow. We have been given quality seed and we know how to manage the greenhouse.  The cucumbers and peppers are wonderful and get good prices.  I have benefited so much, and am now able to make my own fertilizer and have been able to rent more land.  I have also gained confidence and can speak to lots of people.

Mary, Namwai village, Kilimanjaro

I am so thankful to Elizabeth encouraging us to save and showing us how.  Before the project I didn’t even have 500 shillings (15 pence). I learned to save so that my children could study.  I now have two daughters in secondary school, and another training to be an electrician and a son training to be a plumber in a vocational college. 

Eugenia in Kimushuku village, Kilimanjaro

Mary and Eugenia are two of 150 women farmers working incredibly hard to change their own and their families’ lives through the Wamboma project. 

Transforming the lives of women living in poverty through tourism was an idea I had ten years ago. This led to the Wamboma project: Women Farming for Their Future, in the Kilimanjaro region of Tanzania. The project has grown from one group of 30 women to five groups of 30 women, and what I saw and heard on a recent visit was extraordinary. They value the project hugely and are passionate about it.  Before the project started, not one of them had ever received training and none of them had ever been able to save.

All around Moshi, the main town closest to the mountain, are dozens of hotels and lodges, guest houses and restaurants catering to the many thousands of visitors coming to climb the iconic mountain. And all around Moshi and beyond are many thousands of women farmers and their families living in absolute poverty.

KWIECO, a fabulous local women’s empowerment organisation, enthusiastically took up the idea of a project that would train farmers to farm well and work together to provide their produce directly to hotels. Through this model, hotels get quality local produce and the women get better incomes. Mary from Namwai harvesting high-quality cauliflower  and broccoli from the greenhouse for supply to the Wamboma Selling Point.

The partnership works very well: Equality in Tourism are the tourism experts and KWIECO is the local implementing partner training women to farm well, understand farming as a business and entrepreneurship, women’s empowerment, their legal rights, how to save and how to work together cooperatively.  The small team of Stuart, Elizabeth, Aika and Lilian are, like the farmers, passionate about the project, and very hard working.

I have just returned from Moshi, catching up with developments. I have been blown away by what I have heard and what I’ve seen.

Lives Transformed

The Produce

Because the women are growing a very wide variety of incredible, quality produce, they have new markets. Not just hotels and restaurants and their own Wamboma shop, but to the biggest local supermarket and further afield: they are exporting to businesses in other cities. They now know how to negotiate and no longer get ripped off by dealers in the market. 

They are supported by Elizabeth Mushi, the wonderful co-op manager (who is actually a lawyer and takes on their cases of gender-based violence and disputes over land) and Tiofili Ngaga, who trains them and supports them on all aspects of farming, including managing climate change.

Savings

“Saving meant that I could buy a cow for 700,000 Tshillings.  The cow was pregnant.  I sell the milk and sold the baby cow after a year for 500,000 Tshillings.  This enabled me to build a modern toilet.  Now I understand hygiene and my family has far less illness than before.” Joyce, Namwai Village

Each week the groups meet to hand in their savings and repay loans. The women take the meetings very seriously and don't sit and chat but silently observe each other as they have their savings recorded by the chair and the secretary and the treasurer. Women can then ask for loans to support whatever needs they have.

Leading Tour Excursions in Their Villages

Aika Roberts, the project’s tourism manager, has trained two groups of women to receive visitors in the new cultural centres that we’ve built. They used to meet in the open, regardless of weather. Now they have their own place with a kitchen and toilets and running water.  

Visitors receive an incredibly warm welcome with song and dance. After introductions and a local breakfast, guests are invited to join the women cooking and to walk with them to their farms and homes so they can better understand their Chagga culture and their lives. Bananas and maize are the staples, and although the women are now growing cauliflower and broccoli, it’s not something they cook themselves! 

It’s fun and it’s educational, especially as guests and hosts share stories too. It takes most of the day and the feedback from guests, both domestic and international, and the women themselves, is brilliant.

I have benefited from the tourism and enjoy it very much. I particularly liked going to the tourism exhibition in Arusha, where I learned lots. We have never ever had tips before, and they are so good: we put all the tips together so we can use it to benefit the community.

Jacklien, Namwai village

Women told us how the project has made them more empowered through the training, the abundance and quality of what they’re producing, their savings groups and better understanding climate change and how to manage.

They told us how their men now respect them and are now working with them in partnership. As a consequence gender based violence has reduced. The women now have more freedom to make decisions, without restraint.

They told us how valuable it is working as a group and how the groups support them in hard times.

Wamboma’s Progress in Numbers

All the 150 women have children or grandchildren in school.  Approximately a quarter have children or grandchildren in higher education.

All of the women now have tiled toilets with roofs.

Many of the women now have new brick homes.

Most of the women now farm more land that they have either bought or rent: up to 10 acres from less than a quarter of an acre.

One of the women is now chair of her parish council group and has regular agenda items of gender-based violence and human rights.

Rose is Miriam’s daughter in Namwai, on the western slopes of Kilimanjaro.  She is just finishing three years training to be an adult education teacher, her training funded by her parents. 

Rose’s aim is to come back to the village to help the community. She already gives occasional literacy classes to the few who are not literate.

Rose told me that before going to university, she was just at home.  The project has given them opportunities that were unheard of before.  I asked her how she viewed it.  “The project is so beautiful.  I am happy that my parents are working with Wamboma.  It has really empowered my mother”.

Wamboma is seeking funding and partnerships so that it can expand and share its learning with others.  We would love to help change lives for the better with other women farmers through tourism. Email tricia@equalityintourism.org to discuss collaborations.