Community Based Tourism Initiative

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06/02/2011

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IbyIwacu Cultural Village

Rwandas Cultural Hotspot
www.cbtrwanda.org

Kinigi, Musanze
The traditional cultural hotspot where former poachers celebrate traditional dances, lifestyle, ways of living, and conservation of their neighbors, turned friends, THE
MOUNTAIN GORILLAS

Background
For the last 6 years, Rwanda Eco-Tours and Edwin Sabuhoro, the IUCN 2008 Young Conservationist, have been involved in developing this community based tourism initiative and supporting this community project, run, managed and oned by the community and for the community around volcanoes national park aimed at supporting local people through providing income that can help communities support their families as an incentive for them to stop poaching and killing wildlife, and more importantly for them to benefit directly from the resource amidst them, the mountain gorilla tourism. This year, 2011, we have launched GOATS FOR GORILLAS PROJECT, very exciting and interesting project, where every tourist who treks the gorillas gives a goat to a local community family living adjacent to the park, as a tourism incentive for conservation. more on

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The only way to get to know more about local people, their culture, beliefs, traditions, ways of living is by getting close to them, interacting with them, and taking part in their daily activities, and that way you learn about them Edwin Sabuhoro

Why all this?

We believe this is one among other alternative ways that we can give back to the community and conservation that benefits the communities DIRECTLY and links them to conservation of the resource that our tourism depends on (the park, its resources, mountain gorillas etc) thereby curbing down poaching while involving communities in income generating activities to help them feed their families, send their children to school, start small businesses among other things. The village offers travelers the opportunity to visit, take part, and stay in a genuine Rwandan rural village and to get involved and learn more about people, culture, the history and the present. You can visit for an hour, hours, day and even stay over night to experience the Rwandan ways of living and get to know more about the Rwandan people. This gives you a golden opportunity for a people to people learning experience and immersion that takes you deep into our culture, traditions, history, beliefs, ways of living and many more. Its a once in a lifetime community based learning experience for travelers to Rwanda. Its an activity you can combine with gorilla trekking, or an add on-day activity. Because of your support by visiting the village throughout 2010, the community was able to earn US $ 20,000 USD. This is an awesome income to these community members. As a reminder all the revenue collected goes to the community and they are able to feed their families, invest in their community projects, small businesses and many more projects of their choice. In the same year, two community guides who were poachers and are now guides, Harerimana Emmanuel and Twagira Innocent received training in guiding and management of community based tourism initiatives. Innocent received a two weeks training in Kenya, while Emmanuel received his two weeks training in Japan, his first time to travel outside Rwanda and in a plane, what an experience!. This training has proved to be a resource and we continue to strive to train them more. In line with this, Emmanuel has joined University, studying business management a very successful story for us, once a poacher, now a university student. We want to take this opportunity to thank you for your support, and we look forward to much more partnership in this 2011 as we work together to enrich the wellbeing of communities around the gorillas and directly and indirectly conserving the gorillas.

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Photo Highlights

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Pricing

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Traditional Intore dancing, Kings Initiation & House Experience Shooting Arrows, and Songs of Gorillas: 20 USD/per person Whole village experience including community walk, visiting traditional healer, black smiths, basket weaving, millet grinding, community gardens & projects: 35 USD/per person Full board overnight stay, camp fire (igitaramo) and all community activities: 70 USD/per person

Contacts
To book, contact:

Emmanuel Harerimana Tel: 0783476525 Twagira Innocent Tel: 0788451289

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www.cbtrwanda.org you can also,

Email to book or for more info at;

info@rwandaeco-tours.com Tel: 0788352009

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