13 Oct 2022

Ecotourism Botswana is piloting a leadership and mentorship programme.

The aim of the programme is to provide members with an opportunity to gain experience and knowledge about the fundamentals and practices of ecotourism as well as sustainable tourism.

The piloting of the programme, which is designed for undergraduate in all disciplines, was confirmed by Ecotourism Botswana chief executive officer, Mr Jacob Mathapa in an interview recently.

He noted that the primary objective was to promote sustainable tourism in the country focusing on community based organisations to foster improvement in rural livelihoods and conservation of culture and the natural environment.

The programme, he said was motivated by shortage of staff in community trusts, local cooperatives and some tourism enterprises. Mr Mathapa added that shortage of staff had led to some trusts engaging board members to undertake some duties, creating room for funds mismanagement.

He also noted that the programme was ideal to empower trusts since government had planned to allocate some concessions to communities to promote citizen participation.

Mr Mathapa said they believed the programme could help keep the graduates, who were currently roaming the streets busy and give them exposure of working with the community, while assisting host organisations to push their mandates.

He said it had come to light that some community trusts and cooperatives were not achieving their mandates because of shortage of staff.

He said identified students would undertake a four-day leadership and mentorship training and would then be attached to some host organisations and private tourism operators across the country to gain exposure and job experience.

Students, he said would be expected to conduct an assessment of their host organisations and identify projects they could venture into and develop a proposal to request for funding/grants from different donors and organisations that supports community projects.

Mr Mathapa noted that the students would be expected to run the projects for two years, while Ecotourism Botswana would provide quarterly monitoring.

After completion of the service, he said, community based organisations could decide whether to retain the students if they still need their services.

“This initiative is tailor made for current university/college students and we are intending to engage 2 000 students to be inducted on a toolkit for mentoring community based organisations and cooperatives to operate thriving projects and access markets.

We have engaged several trusts and they have welcomed the idea because it could help them with the capacity to manage and promote sustainable tourism,” he added.

Mr Mathapa further revealed that their organisation wished to create appropriate mechanisms and incentives to open up opportunities for rural communities to enhance their participation in the tourism industry, especially in planning and running of enterprise on their land.

As such, he said they were working closely with some colleges and universities across the country to offer some slots for trust members, adding that currently, Botswana Wildlife Training Institute and Maun Technical College had offered 10 slots each.

He also noted that they were working with some community based organisations across the country to help them own some annual activities that could generate income.

He cited Mmadinare Village Development Committee and Trust, who are planning to host an air show and elephant epic before end of the year.

Their intention, he said was to empower communities grappling with tourism challenges to effectively manage their resources and make them actors rather than spectators in the industry. ends