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The Challenge For Africa Foundation

Africa Foundation supports communities across South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya, and these are the stories of villages and communities around precious wilderness areas in these countries that desperately need your help.

When you go into these communities, meet the elders and the professionals (teachers, doctors, nurses) and see the conditions in which they have to operate, you come to appreciate the sheer scale of neglect and poverty that is everywhere in rural Africa.

Why help is needed

The fact is that remote, impoverished communities with relatively few voters, a long way from the ears of the people with the power - are condemned to perpetual poverty unless someone can help them to get the education they need, stay healthy enough to use it and find a career or start the small enterprises needed to lift their communities out of poverty.

KwaZulu Natal

South Africa

In the sand forests and wetlands of Maputaland and northern Zululand - between the Lebombo Mountains and the Indian Ocean are some of South Africa’s finest wilderness areas and wildlife parks - and some of its poorest rural communities.

For 17 years, Africa Foundation has been working with the communities on the fringe of the Phinda Wildlife Reserve. It is here that the model for all our work in rural Africa was developed, and, thanks to the enlightened approach of our principal ecotourism partner, & Beyond and the & Beyond Foundation, it is where we have achieved the most rewarding results.

Kruger National Park

South Africa

On the western fringe of South Africa’s world-renowned Kruger National Park, lies the Sabi Sand - an area given over to private wildlife reserves that boast some of Africa’s finest ecotourism game lodges. These enterprises fuel the local economy and provide employment for large numbers of staff and rangers from the poor local communities that, in turn, fringe the Sabi Sand.

All of the lodges seek to put something back into these communities, but the leaders by far in achieving real success in community uplift are the teams from the &Beyond Foundation and the Londolozi Learning Centre, with whom Africa Foundation works.

Ngorongoro Crater

Tanzania

Not far from Tanzania’s iconic peak - Mount Kilimanjaro - in the volcanic uplands around Arusha, lies one of the world’s great natural wonders - the Ngorongoro Crater National Park. Visitors come from all over the world to stand on its rim and look out across the stunning expanse of grassland, lakes, forest and saltpans that are home to all of Africa’s "big five" species. They stay in luxury lodges around the rim and enjoy day game-viewing drives down into the crater.

The poor rural communities surrounding Ngorongoro attract a lot of attention from guests of the lodges on the crater rim. But down a long stretch of very bad road off the main road on the way to the crater, there are two communities that are seldom seen.

Masaai Mara

Kenya

North of the Mara River in the great Rift Valley of western Kenya lies the Masaai Mara wilderness reserve. Like the Serengeti to its south in Tanzania, the Masaai Mara is home to some of Africa’s greatest herds of wildebeest, zebra and antelope, and the families of big cats that prey on them - not to mention the herds of elephant and buffalo, groups of giraffe and troops of baboons that are everywhere across its plains and in its riverine forests. This is "Out of Africa" country with solitary acacia trees in vast acres of grassland, and lodges that offer a true safari experience under a huge African sky.

Nestling under the Esoit Oloololo Escarpment on the western border of the reserve is one of the oldest and best of these lodges, & Beyond’s Kichwa Tembo camp, which is a leading employer of local people from the communities high on the escarpment behind the lodge. These are a series of Masaai villages that struggle to make a living and to educate their children in this wild and remote terrain.