This year’s winner of OutThere’s Experientialist® Award for ‘Most OutThere Initiative in Community, Conservation and Sustainability’ – Borana Lodge in Kenya – is pioneering a new, integrated model of responsible tourism that both mitigates impacts and powers uplifting local social programmes. And we’re proud that our GBP£7,500 / USD$10,000 went quite a way to help!
It’s when a holiday seeks to do good, rather than simply be good, that OutThere travellers experience the most meaningful ways of exploring the four corners of our world.
Positive-impact initiatives give our journeys the kind of purpose and sense of connection that so frequently slips through the gutters of our hectic everyday lives. It’s the sort of thing that is so in demand, yet relatively underserved. And it would be a mistake to think that regenerative travel is an added-value perk for a privileged few. In the human-made Anthropocene, the most severe problems troubling our planet don’t stop at borders, and sooner or later everyone from New York to New Delhi will feel the impacts of a heating climate, rising sea levels, biodiversity loss, cultural degeneration and social divides – all of which are inextricably linked.
Borana Lodge, an ecolodge at the foot of Mount Kenya, not only recognises this interconnectedness between the challenges we all face but addresses them with rigorous ambition and a generous spirit. Founded in 1993, Borana pioneered a new business model on its 20th anniversary, when it decided to invest all retained earnings back into the conservancy the lodge sits in. Ten years later, to further enhance its impact, Borana changed its rates structure to a model that ensures 24 percent of revenue from each guest stay goes directly towards conservation efforts. Its quarterly impact bill, meanwhile, is independently audited by The Long Run – a membership community of nature-based tourism businesses – demonstrating an uncompromising commitment to transparency.
As you’d expect, the efforts are paying off. Borana’s 2022-established Mazingira Yetu Education Centre has quickly come to play a pivotal role in inspiring not only visitors to the East African nation but, perhaps more crucially, the region’s youth. With a mission to enthuse local communities about the fragile environment and ecosystem that they live in, and the incredible wildlife that depends on the continued health of this habitat, Mazingira Yetu is a driving force behind a local paradigm shift that empowers Kenyans through education, training and employment opportunities. Importantly, Borana recognises that it is only by directly involving those who call this land their home – in a culturally sensitive and engaging way – that unsustainable practices like poaching can ultimately be eradicated.
So what does this involvement look like on the ground? There’s the Mazingira Express, for instance, a modified school bus inviting groups of up to 30 children on game drives through the Borana Conservancy, where they have a chance to learn about the area’s flora and fauna in an evocative, inspirational and spellbinding way. Visits to East Africa’s largest permaculture project, Waitabit Farm, have also become extremely popular. Across its 440 acres of riverine forests and acacia savannah, plus another 100 acres of arable land, the organic farm offers valuable lessons on the vital importance of sustainable food sources.
But Borana Lodge doesn’t stop there. Following a strict local employment policy, economically supporting the Borana Mobile Clinic (which treats an average of 1,000 people per month), and offering the Mazingira Yetu Educational Centre as a space for a local women’s beading group, as well as arranging training days on everything from snake awareness to data protection – this is the 21st century, after all – it is instrumental in safeguarding both lives and livelihoods across the region.
For a single safari lodge to encompass so many projects in its charitable scope, acknowledging that there’s little use in putting out a fire when another ten are still burning, and to do it all while disrupting the status quo with a new rates model, is nothing short of inspiring – and worthy of all our support.
Video courtesy of Borana Lodge and Save the Rhino
Borana Lodge, the standout winner of the “Most OutThere Initiative in Community, Conservation, and Sustainability” at the last Experientialist® Awards, left an indelible mark on us with their transformative work at the Borana Conservancy in Kenya. Their commitment to both people and the planet is nothing short of inspiring. A donation of GBP7,500 / USD$10,000 was directed to the Borana Mobile Clinic, a vital lifeline that delivers essential medical care to the remote communities within the Conservancy. This initiative is not only improving health outcomes but is also profoundly shifting the hearts, minds, and attitudes of the local community, forging a deeper connection to conservation and sustainable living.
