The Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project KPAP has been improving the lives of porters and fighting for better conditions in Kelly since 2003. When the pandemic hit and the borders closed in 2020, thousands of porters faced unemployment. KPAP turned to an unusual solution: organic gardening.
Karen Valenti remembers what life was like for porters on Tanzania's mountain. Kilimanjaro. Rewind 20 years earlier Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project KPAP began, and conditions on the mountain were bleak, to say the least.
"When I got on board in 2004, porters were carrying heavy loads — more than the industry specified weight," she says. "They were given only one meal a day, slept in overcrowded, poor condition tents, and received very poor salaries."
Karen is the program coordinator for KPAP, a local NGO, and Bassel Partner, which has been improving the lives of Kilimanjaro porters for 20 years. KPAP is based in the small town of Moshi, also known as Kelly Gate. During pre-pandemic trekking seasons, 40,000 to 50,000 travelers flocked to Tanzania, backpacks stuffed to the gills, ready to tackle Africa's highest peak: the snow-capped Kilimanjaro volcano, which looms 19,341 feet above the savannah.
When these travelers arrive, they are greeted by an unseen army of porters. No one has taken an exact count, but Karen estimates there are about 20,000 porters working on the mountain each season, serving between 300 and 400 trekking companies. Forty-eight of these companies, including Intrepid, are Partners with KPAP, which means that their flights meet certain standards of porters' welfare, wages, and working conditions. The rest is not. Through its partner companies, KPAP looks after around 7,150 porters in Tanzania; About a third of the total number of workers on Kilimanjaro.
“All climbing companies are welcome to participate with us. It's free,” says Karen. “Unfortunately, only 15% of companies actually participate. For our partners, we are watching every climb. We have one of our KPAP survey porters on every flight, preparing reports and checking on conditions on the ground.”
When COVID hit in 2020, KPAP faced an unprecedented threat: a complete and indefinite shutdown of the Kilimanjaro trekking industry.
For the 20,000 porters on the mountain, whose seasonal income came largely from tourism, this was clearly a looming disaster. However, at least initially, the timing seemed fortuitous: Coronavirus hit Tanzania in March-April 2020, just as the high-climbing season was ending. Porters are used to running slowly in the middle of the year, and Tanzania's president, noted COVID skeptic John Magufuli, has been downplaying the virus. Nobody worries too much. It wasn't until June and August that the new reality sank without a single passenger.
“That was when people started to see how this would affect business,” says KPAP Program Director Kelvin Salla. “From June to September 2020, this was the worst season ever recorded - a complete shutdown of flights. Porters suddenly realized the pandemic was real. We were a bit in crisis.”
KPAP forewarned, thanks to the board members of its parent organization in America, quickly got to work, translating COVID-19 safety precautions into Swahili and distributing them to porters through their partner network. The message got through to the mountain crew: This thing is coming, it's real, and we need to be ready for it. Then thoughts turned to money. Without nomads, porters and their families would need new sources of income, not to mention improved financial literacy. Most porters in Tanzania only have a primary education, and KPAP has found that many do not know how to budget.
“We immediately started a class on budgeting and money management, designed by accountants, and the funny thing is the porters would take that class and come to us and say, ‘Why didn't you teach us this before?’ That’s great!” Karen says.
Subsequently, KPAP worked with a local NGO in Arusha to provide free organic farming workshops to porters. The goal was to help people grow enough to support their families—on average, each porter had four or five mouths to feed—and perhaps generate some immediate income. to develop something that would sold.
“It was an intensive three-day workshop,” says Kelvin, “and we taught them how to set up a simple garden, raise chickens and poultry, support themselves and possibly generate income. The great thing is that our farming partner is actually It was An organic farm, so the porters got practical and applied experience.
"These were simple gardens, but they can grow a lot," he says. “The porters didn't need a big plot of land. Just an old spare tire or an empty cement sack. A bucket. Anywhere they could put a little soil and plant something.”
"I didn't even know what permaculture was!" Karen laughs, "And here all of a sudden I was leading a collective farming conference with all of our partners."
The program has been supported by donations from the Intrepid Foundation, and Karen says it's been a huge success. By teaching the porters the basics or permaculture, they were able to pass on that knowledge throughout the community. "It was phenomenal," she says. “Thanks to the Intrepid Foundation, we have taught 344 porters how to grow their own food, and as a result 813 gardens have been created. People have even taught their neighbors how to do it!”
In a way, the pandemic has pivoted the entire KPAP model. Prior to COVID, the organization ran a few porter classes, but these were mostly first aid or Leave no trace (Making trekking more environmentally friendly on Kilimanjaro). They now see potential to improve not only the porters' working conditions, but the quality of life for entire communities. friends. Neighbour. Children. parents. Everyone works and grows together in isolation from the highs and lows of monsoon tourism.
"We want to continue to expand these programs," says Karen. “Mountain crew, they get old, and they can't travel forever, so those are important life skills. It gives porters a reliable source of income, but also gives them peace and love and family. We're really just getting started.”
If you would like to support KPAP, and the Kilimanjaro Porters, you can donate through Basil Foundation. Valiant will match every donation to a dollar.
Source link
0 Comments