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RReady to make a difference? Then leave your preconceived ideas at home, and pack your smile. A wide range of local and international organisations are doing amazing community tourism projects throughout the country.
If you have more than few days, the Bulungula Lodge in the Eastern Cape should be your first stop. The lodge provides a platform for outsiders to access one of the poorest communities in South Africa. The lodge is located on one of the most remote beaches in the country.
A model of sustainable community development, Bulungula Lodge is an eco-friendly backpacker’s lodge, 40% owned by the Nqileni village, where you can be as hands-on, or chilled-out as you desire. Whether you canoe, horse ride, or enjoy pancakes at the iLanga Fire Restaurant, every activity is 100% community-owned and run.
You can spend your days getting involved by making bricks, stamping corn, brewing beer or catching crayfish. Stay longer and share your expertise with the community, be it in art, teaching or nursing – all contributions are welcome.
Calabash Tours, also in the Eastern Cape, allows volunteers to go into the local schools to teach at the same time as they learn from the community. Children can benefit from your time and knowledge while you can forge relationships that will change the way you look at the world.
You2Africa offers a diverse choice of community projects with children. Work at a soup kitchen or visit a school for troubled boys, play football, share stories and change lives. Orphans and abandoned babies are a big problem in Africa. Why not spend some time looking after those who have no-one to love them?
The South African branch of the international organisation Voluntours Adventures has a variety of volunteering options available, both in the wildlife conservation and humanitarian fields. Among these are conservation projects focusing on dolphins and sharks, as well as humanitarian-based projects focusing on education.
Remember that whatever community tourism project you select, make sure that the money you spend is going back into the community by choosing only those volunteer projects that follow the Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa code of good practice for volunteerism.
Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa is a non-profit marketing organisation that promotes sustainable community development projects, in partnership with the National Development Agency, a government organisation mandated to fund civil society programmes to alleviate unemployment and poverty in disadvantaged communities.
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