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Title: Community Based Tourism Project
Location:
Categories: Culture
Environment
Education
Status:
In Progress
Timeline:
April 19 08 to April 19 08
Description:
The community Based Tourism Project shall involve exploitation of the local natural and cutural resources of Kumi District while paying special attention to conservation towards sustainable development.
Proposed strategies to be employed during project implementation include:-
1) Joint support from both on-line and off-line volunteers. The other off-line volunteers’ Action Points on Education & Research are expected to be on-going.2) Attractive packages offering diverse opportunities to satisfy several interests.3) Trainings to be practical i.e. combining classroom activities with field practice.4) Engage knowledgeable, environmentally and the culturally aware when training the existing local community group; also engage members familiar with the areas to be visited.5) Develop/promote local resources and local expertise. This translates into import savings, environmentally sound designs; and local participation in the travel industry.6) Each off-line volunteer requested to meet their travel costs and contribute a facilitation fee of $300 (to cater for not more than 30 days) towards accommodation, feeding, security, field work. Any saving made goes towards facilitating other programme activities/components.7) Work camps’ (1-3 weeks) participants (a part from local community members) shall be expected to contribute a participation fee of $250 also towards programme sustainability.8) As a communication/marketing strategy, among others the Website, Post cards, Brochures, Partners, Visitors and Work camps shall be used for publicity/advertising the Tourism activities. This calls for quality service delivery. 9) In partnership with other companies, offer interested tourists with tour and travel opportunities/services outside the target project area/district (Kumi District).10) Visiting volunteers to notify the team at least a month before intended date of travel for booking/planning.11) Trainings to take 2-3 hrs (10:00am-1:00pm) a day to minimize costs and to allow community members & volunteers perform other duties.12) Merge Construction and Thematic Theatre for Development when implementing Work camps. Pertinent issues/theme shall include HIV/AIDS, Leadership (Democracy & Good Governance) and Gender issues (Gender Balance & Sensitivity); while construction shall involve: - putting up a campsite and Constructing Board Walks across some identified water sources (rivers and lakes) for convenience so that among others visitors do not have to go the same way. NB: Local Community youth involvement is emphasized/encouraged. Among others they could help out when it comes to going to the neigbouring schools, identifying the elderly and interviewing them, writing about life in Omiito, etc (as a way of community participation).
Background:
This proposed Community-based Tourism Project, forms part of Intercultural Development Agency-Omiito Youth Against AIDS & Poverty (IDA-OYAAP) Poverty Reduction Strategies aimed at generating income for purposes of improving the welfare of the rural communities especially young people in Kumi District, Eastern Uganda. The pilot project; first of the kind in the region, promotes the conservation and exploitation of the local natural and cultural resources towards sustainable development. In this case, the locally available resources could be Religious/Spiritual, Ceremonial (Occasional), Colonial, Archaeological, Natural or Residential; acting as tourist attractions towards community sustainable development.Kumi district (Omiito inclusive) is one of the poorest districts in Uganda. A staggering 63% of the population are illiterate, the district needs a further 1,300 classrooms to house its pupils and 87% of the rural population live below the poverty line of $2 (£1.06) a day. According to a report "Poverty level in Eastern Uganda alarming" (2006) by Center for African Capacity Enhancement in Kumi district; Poverty patterns in eastern Uganda are alarmingly high with over 90% of the population saying they are poor. According to a survey carried out in the Eastern Uganda districts of Mbale, Sironko, Pallisa and Kumi, 22,561 (90%) of the 23,179 households studied, said they were poor, with many depending on subsistence farming as their major source of livelihood. Of the 23,179 households studied, 6,145 (26.5%) were female-headed and 17,034 (73.5%) were male-headed families, while 16,030 (69%) of the households believed they can get out of poverty and 7,149 (31%) said they can not. Poverty levels in the region are extremely worrying and efforts should be geared at addressing the issue; with communities getting organized in groups for self transformation and improvement. This is in line with the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) number one. MDG number one aims at eradicating extreme hunger and poverty by reducing by half, the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day. The survey done was aimed at finding out people's perception of poverty at the household level and to ensure that communities and local governments have current data to be able to design poverty intervention programs. Problems perpetuating poverty in the region include diseases, unemployment, lack of land, low market for agricultural produce, lack of government support and high interest rates on loans. The survey also indicated that because of the biting poverty, many households cannot afford decent housing, with 68% of the households living in huts. Recent Ministry of Finance statistics showed northern Uganda as the poorest, followed by eastern, western and central. National statistics indicate that 38% of the population lives below the poverty line. According to the book "Where are the Poor?" (2005) based on a two year research project conducted by Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS); with a rural population of 3.7 million people and 0.3 million found in urban areas, the Eastern region demonstrated the widest variability in poverty levels. Jinja District had the lowest poverty (38%) in 1992 while Kumi had the highest at 82%. County-level variations were even higher. Income inequality ranged from gini coefficients of 0.22 to 0.44 at the county level. For young people in Kumi - who make up over half the population - opportunities are limited. There exists a lack of access to safe water and to health services. Employment prospects are gloomy as most young people lack the means to acquire the relevant skills to secure a job or to become self-employed. As a result, many end up as agricultural labourers (90% of the population are involved in subsistence agriculture) and are unable to engage fully in the commercial sector and contribute to the growth of the local economy. Environment and natural resource management are crosscutting sectors that must be accorded high priority within the overall framework of Poverty Eradication Action Plan. Uganda's economy relies heavily on natural resources like land, fish from water bodies, livestock, wetlands, forests, water, minerals and climate. These natural resources provide sources of livelihood and means to overcome poverty for the majority of the population. At present, the natural resources contribute about 54% of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Natural resources also contribute more than 90% of Uganda's energy requirements in terms of charcoal and firewood for domestic use. With over 85% of Uganda's population living in rural areas and engaged in natural resources based activities like agriculture, sustainable natural resource utilization therefore, is key to Uganda's effort to ensure sustained poverty reduction. According to the Participatory Assessment Project II, 2002, poor people revealed that environment supports their lives and it is important in helping them to manage vulnerability shocks and disasters. There are strong messages coming from the poor indicating that the quality of the environment and natural resources on which their livelihoods depend is declining. This situation is making them more vulnerable to shocks and risks and hence less able to move out of poverty. In Kumi, there are quite a number of wetlands and forests among others but all these are being degraded due to the ever increasing population and ignorance. With the conservation and exploitation of locally available resources (Natural resources, indigenous knowledge/information, human resource and time etc), it is expected that the community shall have at least 55% control over the outcome since this input shall greatly facilitate/sustain the poverty reduction strategy determined. In addition, the community is expected to be involved in the monitoring and evaluation processes to ensure a degree of satisfaction with regard to the expected outcome. It is against this background that we strongly believe in the implementation of this Community-based Tourism project proposal as an Income Generating Activity aimed at Institutional Capacity Building at Grassroot and Institutional level towards sustainable community development
Objectives:
To promote, lobby and advocate for Education, Research and Rural Development activities to support and assist Omiito village communities improve their livelihoods through conserving and exploiting the local natural and cultural resources in Kumi district, Eastern Uganda
With the community tourism project becoming a success, we shall among others have- · Employment opportunities for the rural poor created.· Contribute to improved literacy levels among the rural poor.· Local natural and cultural resources fully and sustainably exploited towards rural community development.· Youth Programme activities sustained thus improved service delivery.
Milestones:
Being able to have something done with almost no funding
Budget:
$22,318
Needs:
Recriutment of off-line volunteers (to visit the community inorder do do work in the field)
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