Kaingu Community Responsibility
Kaingu is located in the Namwala Game Area (GMA) on the East bank of the Kafue River, a 10-minute boat ride from our harbour in the National Park, where we keep our game drive vehicles and where most guests arrive. Around 20km South of us, the GMA starts to become inhabited, and indeed these small communities are where 97% of our staff come from. Being such close neighbours means that these communities are intrinsically linked to us.
We firmly believe that protected areas cannot exist in isolation – for protected areas (where nature-based tourism takes place) to exist in perpetuity, they must have value to the communities around them and indeed to the nation as a whole.
The value being attached to these areas can realistically only come from tourism – from jobs, services, supplying lodges, making crafts to sell to tourists, being employed by park management, etc.
If the protected areas do not provide a benefit to local people, then ultimately, the areas are doomed to fail and indeed are resented. As such, we believe that in building a sustainable business, we must endeavour to provide as many benefits to the communities as possible. As such, we undertake the following:
- Employ staff exclusively from communities around Kafue National Park where possible, and specifically from the Kaingu chiefdom. Only when exceptional skill sets are required (qualified guides, chefs, etc.) will other recruitment be considered.
- Support local education by assisting communities by paying the salaries of community teachers in order to reduce the burden on the community members.
- Support the Itumbi and Keela schools with donations (and fundraising) to assist with infrastructure development.
- Encourage (through school and village visits) guests to see the challenges faced in small rural Zambian communities. This often results in donations and is, in fact, how we have been able to assist to finance many of our projects – Itumbi solar borehole, Keela school two classroom block, Keela community borehole sinking etc. Kaingu lodge then provides mechanisms and transparency to implement and oversee donations.
- Assist in the bursaries of deserving children from the communities. So far, this has led to more than 6 individuals going on to sponsored tertiary education.
- Promote alternative livelihood options to local craftspeople by giving access to markets. This Kaingu curio shop provides a ready market to tourists, which otherwise would not be possible. We assist the creators by agreeing on a fair and realistic selling price, stock the items and then hold the sales for them to later collect. No commission or charges of any sort are added by us.
- Promote local produce suppliers. We encourage local farmers to supply us with local vegetables. However, reliability is critical. We provide seeds and other inputs to get people started (once we know they are reliable). We pay the same price that we pay in Lusaka, so it is more than worth people’s while to supply us.
- Source building materials as locally as possible. Be it thatching grass or a large consignment of cement, we try to purchase locally in order to attempt to keep the “trickle-down” effect of tourism within our area as much as possible.
- All this is in addition to the work we do with the “Kaingu Trust”, which was set up by the lodge and uses money that we contribute on a “bed night” basis to a committee including Chief Kaingu and other local notable peoples. The trust has now expanded and raises monies from other sources to benefit the area.
