Africa Wildlife Conservation, Community Support and Eco-toursim
Woni Safarisbelieve in the conversation of Kenya’s inheritance, their wildlife. While other Africa countries pride themselves in having natural minerals like gold and diamonds and oil, in Kenya their pride lies in the conservation of their wildlife and more so the endangered species. Woni Safaris are the official tour operators for The Friends of The Elephant. They have been providing services to the foster parents of Friends of the Elephants since their inception up to date. The number of the foster parents has been on the rise every year from the initial 11 persons to the current approximate over 100 Persons. Some of their consideration areas include:
Conservation of their Environment: Woni Safaris work with local schools in Kenya on tree planting projects where by they accord their clients to leave a mark when they came on safari by planting a tree.
Conversation of the African Culture: Woni Safaris, are very proud of the African culture and are proud to showcase it to their clients. They give their clients an opportunity to visit and interact with the local communities.
Education: Their clients also get an opportunity of visiting local schools where they have child sponsorship projects as well as donating of schoolbooks, sports uniforms and accessories.
Poverty Alleviation: Woni Safaris have incorporated Eco tourism as one of their main products and this has proved to be very popular with their past clients. They donate a percentage of all the activities they undertake during their eco tours at the places they visit. This generates income for different projects as well as giving the local community another alternative of earning a living as opposed to activities, which destroy the environment such as sand harvesting and tree cutting for fire wood.
The clients undertake the above projects after they see the needs of concerned communities as follows:
The Education Sponsorship: When Woni Safaris take their clients to visit the Masai in their villages, the clients get to notice that some girls as young as 14 years old with young babies strapped at their backs. Almost always travelers want to know why these children do not go school and are informed that the young girls are people’s wives as the Masai community marry off their girls because the younger they are, the more dowry they fetch.
The Tree Planting Project: On one of the development charts of the school Woni Safaris visits, top on the list was “fencing of the school compound”. This was so that the school can embark on tree planting project without fear of domestic animals from the surrounding village destroying the young trees. One client took note of this and when she went back home, she started fundraising for tree seedlings for this school for a dollar a tree and this was very successful.