Round Table Africa is asked by Honeyguide Foundation to come up with a develop a business plan for the establishment of a Community Business Center (CBC) for the buying and selling of vegetables, salads and fruits from local villages to the lodges at the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. The establishment should be located at Nata village.

 

Honeyguide Foundation is a Tanzanian NGO that aims to bridge the gap between the tourism industry and local communities by creating new business enterprise markets and encourage local economic empowerment. Honeyguide Foundation currently carries out small business projects in the Machochwe community in northern Serengeti National Park.

 

The activities entail providing locally grown produce (vegetables, salads, fruits, dry goods, drinks, poultry and eggs, meat (for staff) and milk) to safari camps within Serengeti National Park in an environmentally conscious manner.  The role of Honeyguide Foundation is to partner tourism enterprises with partners in the village, to provide local farmers with necessary seeds, and to facilitate necessary business services to supply the produce directly to the camps through the Community Business Center (CBC) in Machochwe. Currently, 5 farmer groups (each group has up to 9 members) have been connected to camps.
 

The business plan will be developed by the end of 2010 by Arda Riedijk.