TOURISM BEYOND WILDLIFE... a community experience!

Great Lakes Safaris and UCOTA have joined hands in order to promote community tourism and support community development, in partnership with tourists.

Where UCOTA develops the rural communities and creates projects, Great Lakes Safaris offers you the opportunity to actually visit the community of your choice and see how the project supports their way of living. Cultural safaris in Uganda will not only give you an experience of a lifetime, but will make sure that the local people benefit from tourism as well!

AND YOU CAN HELP TOO!

You will help and support the communities by visiting one of the projects directly, by volunteering or by making donations. To ensure that the money is well spent, donations should be made at one of the offices.

Don't watch the world from a distance, but get involved and experience the real Africa!

UCOTA

UCOTA exists to help local communities improve their lifes through the scale of handcrafts and the provision of accommodation, guiding and cultural performances. This form of tourism assures that the benefits stay as much as possible in the community. The groups operate small enterprises ranging from accommodation and guiding to craft making, music, dance and drama.
Thanks to the revenues from these activities many important community projects are supported, including clinics, schools, water supply and literacy programmes. And every time you buy a UCOTA product, you help the community to help themselves.

SCHOOL PROJECT KITWE

In October 2009, Nanny, Peter, Marjan and Frits travel to Uganda for the first time. Together with their guide Gerald from Great Lakes Safaris they visit various national parks, with beautiful nature and wild animals. But they also are introduced to the small villages along the road and the local people who live here. During long walks they visit schools, hospitals and women's projects. But it is the primary school in Kitwe that steals their heart...

Living in a western country you realize that everything is well organized. You take it for granted. At this school, however, with 700 students, the situation is different. Apart from (paintless) premises and (ragged) school banks there is nothing. No electricity, no water and no kitchen to prepare meals.

After a meeting with the head master, a plan is created to support the children who have welcomed them so warmly with beautiful songs and dances. They agree that the lack of electricity is the most important and urgent aspect at the moment and a first amount is being donated. Their guide Gerald commits himself to oversee the project and make sure that everything will go as planned.

It takes a few weeks but then the electricity project is ready to start. And in August 2010 the four Dutch receive the message that the school is completely supplied with electricity. A good reason to return to Uganda and see the result!

In November 2010, Nanny, Peter, Marjan and Frits return to Uganda and combine a safari with a visit to the school in Kitwe. The reception has been renovated and is overwhelming. The rooms where the children are staying overnight and the headmasters' office are provided with light. Now children can study in the evenings. But the visit to the school also makes it painfully clear that a lot more is needed.

After the construction of electricity the next plan is to create a new kitchen. For the building and utensils an amount of approximately Euro 4,000 is needed. Many people have already donated, sufficient to start the constrution of the kitchen. But also the bedrooms need be improved, beds and bedclothes need to be bought, the library needs to be supplied with books and the buildings need to be maintained.

Would you help us to build this small-scale project? Or visit the school personally and see the progress that has been made so far? Any contribution is welcome!

Please keep helping the children!

For more information you can send an email to info@schoolproject-uganda.nl or contact Great Lakes Safaris.