World Unite! - Social Reality Tour Moshi Volunteering

Marketing, product development: Social Reality Tour Moshi

The NGO "KIWAKKUKI" runs an outreach program for HIV patients in Moshi. However, the continuation of this program totally depends on whether sufficient funds can be generated or not.

For this reason, World Unite! started the Social Reality Tour with KIWAKKUKI. The idea is to generate income through tourism to be able to continue the outreach program.

In Tanzania, there is a certain number of tourists who are quite interested in getting an insight into the social situation of their travel destination and to do "something good". For this reason, almost all hotels and tour operators bring tourists who ask for it to an orphans centre.

A visit to such an orphan centre usually consists in the presentation of two songs by the children, then the children present themselves by their names, and then visitors can leave a donation, which is either money or some toys or cloths that they bring from their home country.

The problem with this is that orphan centres which are located nearby a hotel are being overwhelmed with gifts, whereas others don't get anything at all. The orphan centres then often hide the gifts - if the next visitors sees that there are already plenty of toys and cloths, they wouldn't probably donate anything. For the orphan centre staff the sales of these articles, which mostly are of higher quality then the local products, is a lucrative private extra income. The children at the orphans centre don't really benefit from this orphanage tourism.

Also the visitor's are not really getting much more out of such a visit than the satisfacion of their consciousness. About the real life situation in Tanzania they don't get to know anything.

With the Social Reality Tour however, visitors are joining a social worker to a slum area for 2-3 hours, visiting families and individuals who are suffering from HIV/AIDS. Each visitor pays 10 USD from which things are being bought that these people need most, such as food, school supplies, soap etc. The social workers exactly know about the needs of the people they support. Further donations are welcome, but not expected. The social worker can give background information to the visitors, giving them valuable insights into the reality of a developing country.

The individuals who are being visited have all agreed that they will be visited and they are happy about the fact that someone is interested in them. It is not at all the case that tourists gaze upon them. The visitor groups just consist of 2-5 people; within the 2-3 hours' tour, only 3 patients are being visited, allowing enough time for the visit to leave the patients in dignity; often visitors and the individuals being visited stay in touch even after the visit.

Tasks for volunteers and interns are:

* Marketing for the tour: to advertise the tour in travel forums, travel websites, list of "things to do" etc.; to contact tour operators and hotels so that they offer the tour to their clients

Many tourists prior to or after their safari or Kilimanjaro climb have an extra day in Moshi and like to do short and non-stressful activities; however Moshi has a limited range of options for this. The problem is that we don't pay commission to the tour operators and hotels, therefore they prefer to sell excursions to their clients that they make profit with. Foreign tour operators that send clients to Moshi seem to have a better understanding about the Social Reality Tour than local operators, as such offers fit well into their programs of "Corporate Social Responsibility".

* Developing a scheme with Kiwakkuki how a growing number of participants of the tour can be practically handled with the social workers and patients

* Developing possibilities how the HIV patients can make products that they can sell as souvenirs to visitors to generate extra income. Some of the patients currently produce sandals, pillows and other goods. Partners should be found to sell these products at shops (e.g. hotel shops), and other possibilities of distribution should be explored.