Tourism Helps Communities
Travel philanthropy on course to benefit Maasai people in Tanzania
TANZANIA (eTN) - Clad in their traditional attire, the Maasai women are found selling beads and locally-made jewelry and bracelets to the tourists camping and visiting in their location within the Loliondo area in northern Tanzania.
Beads, necklaces, and scepters made in different colors, along with bracelets, are the most attractive locally-made jewelry by the Maasai women folks and which most tourists visiting the area want to buy.
The Maasai are the most interesting people in Tanzania because of their lifestyle, which until today has remained intact and unchanged for a number of centuries.
Most of the Maasai people live in Arusha region of northern Tanzania, the area which is the tourist hub in East Africa. But the Maasai beliefs have confined them to cattle-keeping, with less interest in modern lifestyles and education.
Travel philanthropy is currently changing the Maasai life with more benefits from tourist companies, which are operating in the Loliondo area, where a section of companies are running hunting and photographic safaris.
The Enyuata Women's Collaborative is a living example of Maasai women who are going to benefit from travel philanthropy initiatives. From just ten women, the Enyuata Women Group now has more than 100 members who are aiming for the stars. Enyuata Women's Collaborative members are looking to benefit from tourists who pass through their village, Sukenya, heading to Loliondo-based tourist camps.
The Maasai women members of Enyuata Collaborative have planned to start a community health initiative in their area soon. Enyuata chairwoman, Nairotiai Parmeres, has been happy to see many more tourists calling at their road-side stalls packed with traditional artifacts.
Unlike most communities in Tanzania, the Maasai people in the Loliondo area live in a harsh environment, sharing the semi-arid land with wild animals, where water, better roads, health services, and schools have been lacking for decades.
Only four-wheel tourist and heavy-duty vehicles can enter the Loliondo Maasai area on ground. Most tourists prefer to fly there with light aircraft.
Chairman of the Ngorongoro District Council Mr. Simon Soinda said more tourist companies are greatly needed to help the Maasai people, saying this would make them change from their traditional lifestyle to a modern life.
Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) from across the world are being accused of reaping donor money in the name of Maasai communities, with no or little help in changing their lifestyles through provision of modern education and other social services.
Those NGOs have been operating within the Maasai communities with little or no changes observed to alleviate the Maasai communities from ignorance and abject poverty.
Over 65,000 animals out of 380,000 cattle in the Ngorongoro District died last year due to a dry spell, which hit a big part of northern Tanzania, said Elias Wawa Lali, the Ngorongoro District Commissioner. This situation caused more sufferings to the Maasai communities whose entire life depends on cattle.
Cattle are a symbol of wealth for the Maasai communities, whose modern education and agriculture are a far dream to reach.
Travel philanthropy in the Sukenya village and the rest of the Loliondo area is going to change the current life situation the Maasai people are living with today. Tourists visiting the area have contributed, through their host companies, significant portions of their spending. It is anticipated that Maasai communities will benefit through direct financing from tourists visiting the Sukenya village in the forms of provisions of water; construction of classrooms and teachers' houses; and a subsidy for teachers' salaries.
Despite travel philanthropic support to the Maasai for education, a big challenge remains on how to encourage Maasai parents to relieve their children from caring for the cattle on dry grass pastures in favor of school and learning.
Tanzania Conservation Limited (TCL) has committed a travel philanthropic contribution from 700 tourists who are expected to visit the Sukenya village before the end of this year. If successful, the Maasai communities in the village will reap not less than US$14,000 that will go to the village directly.
Each tourist camping with Tanzania Conservation Limited will be encouraged to contribute US$20 to the village. The company, TCL, is currently financing construction of teachers' modern houses at a cost of US$30,000.
Enaboishu Warriors Group, that is made up of 15 Maasai youths, is the other beneficiary of travel philanthropy from TCL. The group members entertain tourists during the evenings, and each member gets a token of US$10 just after a few minutes of traditional performance.
A Maasai story-teller is the other beneficiary of travel philanthropy from TCL. She gets a token of US$30 after telling her local Maasai cultural story about wildlife, cattle, or a lifestyle.
Land conflicts between the Maasai communities and wildlife institutions, including the government-controlled wildlife areas, remains at the top of the problems facing the Maasai as they strive to maintain their old cultures, taking cattle as a symbol of wealth and polygamy as a pride.
European-based NGOs are said to fueling the conflict between the Maasai communities who are herding their livestock in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, where the attractive Ngorongoro Crater is located.
The fight between the Maasai versus Tanzania government over the land ownership inside Ngorongoro Conservation Area has attracted the Tanzanian president Jakaya Kikwete to direct the Maasai people to look for better and more productive methods in keeping their livestock and to avoid environmental hazards within the rich wildlife Ngorongoro, which has been listed as a World Heritage Site.
Comments
Elisha, I am familiar with your reasoning from the justifications of the Tz government trying to masque further impoverishment and persecution of the Maasai and other pastoralists as helping them “modernize”. Pastoralism is by many experts considered a suitable economic activity for African drylands, as long as there is access to dry and wet season grazing. Equal access to education and health services all over the country should be provided by the Tz state and is not a job for NGOs or neo-colonial “investors”. Many people are working very hard for a better life for their children, some organizing themselves and thus ending up in those by the government so detested civil society organizations. Organization is also needed to be able to earn money from the tourism industry without losing control and ownership of the land.
Due to some very personal and direct experiences I’m worried about the rule of law in Tanzania, but I still hope that an independently acting judiciary is possible.
Elisha
It vividly seems that Sussana is totally ignorant about Tanzania, the Maasai community and the government of Tanzania. She seems to be out of knowledge about what is the plan of Tanzanian government in changing the Maasai life from the old fashioned living into modern life. For example, the Maasai people have been keeping cattle in the very old fashioned style without any profit rather than prestige. They fail to get good prices of their cattle, hence live in very abject poverty and hunger. They starve while watching their cattle. Maasai women die because of poor dietary or malnutrition during pregnancy. Does Sussana who is living in a modern world wants these people continue living in such a miserable life? Maasai children have never seen schools for centuries. Does Sussana there in decent life in Sweden wants to see these children continue in such a miserable situation?
Maasai people in Ngorongoro are living in very harsh conditions – No water, No roads, No health services, No good education, etc. It takes a Maasai pregnant woman more than 10 hour to walk or getting a hospital service. Is Sussana wants this to continue?
I am not well informed abut Thomson company, but I know that Mr. Apolinario Tairo has been among prominent journalists in East Africa writing on Natural Resources and village communities for almost 20 years.
The aim of the Tanzania government is to encourage investors to put their money in Maasai areas so as to stimulate development there. We highly encourage companies to support the Maasai and other communities.
If there is a court case between a certain company and the Maasai people, Sussana should note that Tanzania is a democratic country where the rule of law prevails. We are not running this country, Tanzania, through blog reportage from Sussana in Sweden.
Sussana should stop rhetoric. She is totally ignorant of Tanzania, other than being used by NGOs to discourage efforts that could make the Maasai changing into a modern living.
Dear Sir,
I didnt know about what Ms. Susanna writes but have looked for it on internet. What makes your staff write about this or that you maybe decide but what is clear that your writer here has kept quiet over the real issues on Tanzania conservation and the Serengeti road. There he only repeated government press and if he cannot contribute to it let him be quiet and shameful.
Yours faithfully
Mukasa Fred M.
What the ”article” writer fails to mention is that the ”philanthropic” safari company has a court case for land grabbing against it. Two other sub-villages bordering the disputed land have refused (!) “philanthropic” money as they want their land back and don’t want to be used by “journalists” in the way that the people of Sukenya are being used here.
The Maasai pastoralists have been the victims of land grabbing for a century now, the current Tz government is especially anti-pastoralist and there certainly is a grave threat in Ngorongoro Conservation Area. The pastoralist lifestyle that has coexisted better with wildlife than many others has turned into a curse and the government is busy all over the country giving away the land to “philanthropic” investors.
It’s now definitely proven that Apolinairo Tairo is not a journalist, but a pr-person for Thomson Safaris and the Tz government.
Here I have written about my experiences in the area early this year: http://termitemoundview.blogspot.com/2010/03/sukenya-farm-conflict-what-...
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