The African Travel Recovery Fund is a follow up to African Travel Crisis Fund, which was launched in response to the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on community-led travel businesses. We need your help to raise $250,000 to support the recovery of five of these businesses, all of which work at the coalface of conservation and community development in Africa.
Background
At the start of the pandemic, we quickly moved to set up the African Travel Crisis Fund as a way to try to support some of our partners who were facing significant loss in revenue due to travel restrictions caused by Covid-19, and which threatened their ability to continue the conservation and community development work they are so critical in delivering. This fund distributed $106,611, resulting in the following key impacts:
- Helped protect 228 jobs
- 915 community members supported through community development work
- Supported partners responsible for managing over 896,000 Ha of conservation land
Thanks to our clients, donors and other individuals, the Crisis Fund has been a real success, allowing us to react quickly and effectively.
From crisis to recovery
As the pandemic has continued, we are now starting to look for way to live with and adapt to the situation. As such, we are replacing the Crisis Fund with the African Travel Recovery Fund. This marks an important shift away from fire-fighting towards a more strategic long-term plan for helping rebuild the conservation travel businesses in an even more impactful, greener, and sustainable way.
Mobilising all resources
The Recovery Fund will do more than just distribute money, which was the sole remit of the Crisis Fund. Instead, we will mobilise all our resources – intellectual capital, network and contacts – to develop a structured support programme for the five targetted businesses. We will be working beyond just Wild Philanthropy, bringing the whole Africa House Group to play. This includes:
- Journeys by Design, one of the industry’s most respected African specialist travel agent.
- Tekula Capital, the organisation’s social enterprise investment vehicle, which has invested in local Ethiopia travel business Wild Expeditions Ethiopia.
- Wild Philanthropy, our non-profit, which supports conservation and community development work in Africa.
Between these three organisations, we believe we have a unique opportunity to identify a suite of community-led travel-driven conservation organisations and support their recovery through:
- Reviewing and supporting business and financial planning.
- Developing new strategies to adapt to a rapidly changing marketplace.
- Supporting marketing and brand development.
- Spreading their message and work via the likes of FT, Conde Nast Traveller, and the New York Times.
- Developing social media campaigns.
- Driving business directly to these businesses through Journeys by Design and marketing to other international agents.
- Funding of vital community development and conservation work.
We have identified five opportunities that we would like to start working with immediately – across Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia. We are looking for $250,000 to start developing and rolling out this model, which we believe is rapidly scalable.
For more information on the Recovery Fund and the five identified business, please contact Paul Herbertson. For travel that benefits these five business, please contact Will Jones and Angela Sacha, both of Journeys by Design. To donate, see the form below.