Tourism Community Development Trust - South Africa

Networking at Rondevlei Nature Reserve Nov 11, 2009
by Coleen van Staden – Cape Town Tourism

Cape Town Tourism Team South, together with a number of Cape Town Tourism members, had a fun-filled, jam-packed networking function on Wednesday, November 11 at Rondevlei Nature Reserve, just 15 minutes’ drive from the city centre.

The setting was ideal and although the weather threatened to derail our plans, we were able to go ahead with our activities.

Joy Bennett of Imvubu Nature Tours was a gracious host and she, together with the Cape Town Tourism staff, had put together an informative, interactive self-guided 45-minute walk. Most of the function’s attendees had never been to Rondevlei before and were delighted by what they found.Rondevlei is managed by the City of Cape Town and has a dedicated team of staff and interns who manage the area sensitively and responsibly. The area is home to eight hippos, some unique vegetation and roughly 230 bird species.

Our intrepid walkers were encouraged to look, listen, smell and touch – all under the watchful eye of Joy. We challenged the members to return with some hippo dung, which we got in abundance – with some droppings of the Cape clawless otter sneaked in among the lot! It made for a most fascinating dung lecture.

Then it was on to more serious stuff: we looked at a case study of a local fishing community in India that showed just how damaging irresponsible tourism development can be. This particular community, once a happy, self- sustainable community, where rice and fishing were the main industries, ended up a sex tourism destination in a relatively short time.Because the initial development lacked vision, was not subjected to environmental impact assessments and was bogged down in corruption and greed, the community did not benefit at all from tourism but was instead plunged into abject poverty, with mothers and daughters eventually resorting to prostitution to sustain their families.

We also looked at sex tourism and child prostitution in South Africa and Cape Town, and examined how the tourism industry could be involved in various ways to assist and support lobby groups, and international and local organisations.

TheCode.org is an international code for the global tourism industry that encourages tourism businesses, organisations and governments to inform and educate residents and visitors. Molo Songololo is a Cape Town-based non-governmental organisation that works in the field of protection of children’s rights and the Tourism Community Development Trust (TCD Trust) is supported by our local tourism industry through the Friends of the TCD Trust programme. The Trust has done some amazing projects in various communities around Cape Town.

We were privileged to have the Trust’s Bronwen Wetton talk about its latest project in Hanover Park, where a local school has been earmarked for the development of a multi-purpose educational and recreational centre – keeping children off the streets after school and thus reducing the lure of gangsterism and drugs. The project is huge and members were encouraged to support it, either through donations or in kind.
One of our tour operator members, Arlene Hermanus of Shiya Afrika Tours, sprang into action immediately and is offering her services as a storyteller for the soon-to-be built library!

Finally, furthering the theme of safety and security, new Cape Town Tourism member Guest Alert presented its product to us. The product aims to protect the industry against unscrupulous visitors by creating a database of reported bilkers, thieves, scam artists etc. This will be a very useful tool, with real-time reports available to subscribers to the service.

We then got down to some serious eats and drinks, and some productive networking – in true Cape Town fashion!

Herewith the transcript from the Soli Philander Show on Cape Talk Radio, 11 November 2009, World Responsible Tourism Day.

THE SOLI PHILANDER SHOW 11 November 2009 1:35 PM
The TCD Trust was formed in 2004 by 4 players in the tourism industry, who, recognizing the tremendous need for help in many disadvantaged areas, teamed up in a bid to unify the efforts of the tourism industry and maximize effectiveness in bringing the benefits of the tourism to the community at large.
Each of the trustees has been personally involved, in a hands-on capacity, with various community projects and after chatting about these projects, comparing notes and sharing their frustrations, they decided that it made perfect sense to pool their efforts;resources and to form a legal body to take these efforts to greater hights.
Since its creation, the Trust represents a growing number of companies: the Friends of the Trust.

Up till now the Trust has accomplished 4 big projects:

Masikhule Home Crèche
Baphumelele Educare Centre
Rosalia’s Soup Kitchen
Respite Home For Infected Children.

Today Soli spoke to founding member from the trust, Enver Mally about their next initiative, Blomvlei Multipurpose Center to be built on the grounds of Blomvlei Primary School. The reason for this, says Enver is that schools must be the centers of community life.
Initiated in response to Blomvlei Primary School’s expression of need through the 567 Cape Talk’s “Silence the Violence” campaign in 2005, the purpose of the project is to build a multi-purpose facility on the premises of the Blomvlei Primary School grounds in Hanover Park. Facing the threat of violence and drug, the community of Hanover Park stands amongst the most vulnerable communities in South Africa. The school is the door to the future of this community. The learners of the school are the primary beneficiaries of the multi-purpose facility. We are looking at opening the facility to the broader community.

The Facility will include:
Library / Media Resource Centre – building starts in January 2010
Central Hall & Indoor Recreation Area
Conference, seminar, meeting, training room
Catering Kitchen
Outdoor Recreation & Sports Area, Two soccer fields have already been planted.

The design of the buildings is to include as many cost effective sustainable construction methods and materials as possible. The design will enable the facilities to maintain heat in the winter without costly heating and be cool in the summer months without air conditioning. Rain water storage tanks will also be installed to catch water run off from the roof and gutters.

The TCD Trust will also be recruiting people from the local community who have building skills to help with the construction of the center. They’ve contacted and sourced various companies and NGO who will also be supplying the school with trees, an educational garden, vegetable garden and a recycling depot.