Our Co-Director Tricia Barnett recently returned from a trip to Namwai, on the western side of Kilimanjaro, where our Wamboma Co-operative impact project is based. Here she reflects on the monumental opening of a new cultural centre and how this will help the project open up to tourists.
For four years, the 30 Wamboma women farmers at Namwai have met weekly to pay their savings and borrowings into their microfinance scheme.
Without complaint or expectation, they have met at the side of their demonstration field, sitting on tree trunks and upturned buckets. They have no chairs.
In silence, they sit for about an hour as each one of them presents her savings book to their co-op leaders to record how much they are saving that week, as well as how much they are repaying. The amounts, however small, are all treated with respect. These small amounts have proven to be life changing.
They can afford to save now because they are being paid fair prices for the quality produce that they are selling to their Wamboma Co-operative. It’s hard work farming: all the women still primarily use hoes. They work together on the demonstration field as well as on their own plots.
They are inevitably also responsible for their families’ wellbeing in every which way. Often these women are widows or abandoned, but increasingly, husbands are playing a more involved role in their wives’ work and showing them far more respect.
A New Chapter
Although their lives have been transformed through their hard work and fair payment for the produce they harvest for distribution to hotels and their Wamboma shop as farm boxes or sacks, the Wamboma farmers’ meeting conditions haven’t: come rain or shine, they meet in the open, committed to transforming their and their families’ lives.
So, it was a total treat to be with them when the floor of their new cultural centre had set and we could hold our first meeting under a roof: and sitting on chairs! Scarcely believing that this was for real, these stoic farmers took quite a while before they could, as a woman, break out into a fabulous, wonderful smile, and then a huge cheer.
It is not yet finished, we have toilets to install, and we have to connect the water, but this building will be where the women will meet and greet visitors who will journey up the west side of Kilimanjaro to spend time with them to get an insight into their culture and lives.
This will be a whole new chapter in their lives and that of the wider community.
Opening Up to Tourists
I am here to help train them to provide such a service. Having now spent a day themselves being tourists to see what it’s like, they are super keen to learn and contribute.
And it is huge fun working with them: lots of laughter and creative thinking. What would they like to share with visitors? What would they like to learn from visitors? How best to do this?
When we’ve finished and trialled a visit or two and the women have gained confidence, we will open it up for tour operators to bring their clients to enjoy the day with and in the community. It will be a unique experience: learning about women’s empowerment in Kilimanjaro.
Many thanks to the Exodus Foundation for their commitment to this development.
Support the Wamboma Co-operative’s Next Steps
We are united in excitement about providing the women of Namwai with an opportunity to share their stories and learn about the wider world that the visitors come from. But we are also pragmatic, and one of the objectives of the project is for them to have the opportunity to widen the scope of their incomes.
Once the tours are up and running, we anticipate they will enable the Namwai group to become self-sufficient. But it’s always the costs of the staff that we have huge difficulty covering.
We still have quite a way to go before the women will feel confident to receive guests from other countries and share their stories. They will require training and support as they test out their visitor skills and begin to manage the tours. For this, we will employ Aika.
Aika is a local community development officer with a focus on gender empowerment. Critically, she is also experienced in tourism and has a good understanding of what the visitors will enjoy and appreciate. She is excited to begin work with the women of Namwai.
All of this will take time and will involve costs. When the women are ready to receive visitors they will not only take them to their fields and homes and cook for them, they will also be on the path to increased income and a self-sustaining social enterprise. But we very much need funds to get them there.
Because, each time Aika travels up the mountain to the village it costs in fuel costs: £38
Each workshop she holds costs £60 in her time and refreshments for the participants.
She will need another 12 sessions with the women and for trialling it.
If you are able to donate to this at all, it would be very much appreciated. All donations, of whatever amount, makes an important contribution: especially if we are able to increase it with Gift Aid.
Thank you
Donate now to help these Wamboma farmers build their skills and reach self-sufficiency.
If you want to know more about our work with the women of Kilimanjaro: Empowering Women Farmers Through Tourism, please get in touch with Tricia on tricia@equalityintourism.org.
