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Who We Are
Our Vision
Oreteti Saplings Foundation: Sharing the Benefits

Who we are

Lesikar Ole Ngila (Director) is a Maasai senior warrior from the village of Eluwai, Monduli District, Tanzania. He is also Director of the non-governmental organization Aang Serian http://www.aangserian.org.uk (‘House of Peace’ in the Maasai language), which is building a secondary school in Eluwai, leading a grassroots campaign against HIV/AIDS and female genital mutilation, and helping to document indigenous knowledge using video technology. Lesikar has represented Aang Serian and the Maasai at many international conferences, including the Third Session of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues at the United Nations headquarters in New York in 2004. He is learning the skills of traditional healing from his father Ngila Ole Kondirri, a prominent herbalist and bonesetter, and studied Travel and Tourism at the Professional Tour Guide School (PROTS), Arusha, in 2000-2001

Gemma Enolengila (Travel Consultant) was born in Southampton, England; studied at Oxford University; and subsequently later gained a Masters degree in Environmental Anthropology at the University of Kent. She is a Research Associate and Co-Director of the Global Initiative for Traditional Systems (GIFTS) of Health, an Oxford-based charity, since 1999, and has worked on projects with the UN Development Program and the World Health Organization. She now specialises in designing tailor-made cultural, artistic, academic and spiritual programmes for both short-stay and long-stay visitors to Tanzania.  Gemma and Lesikar were married in 2003, and have two daughters, Nendi and Suzie.

Nick Francis (Office Manager) grew up in the Lake Victoria region of Tanzania and took a Diploma Course Tour Guiding and Administration in Arusha before taking over as manager at World Air Travel and Tours in Arusha. He has also worked as a teacher of English and Spanish. Nick joined Oreteti in early 2007 and also runs his own training course for tourism students in Arusha, which attracts participants from as far away as Dar es Salaam.

More information on Oreteti’s tour guides, drivers, lecturers and course tutors coming soon!

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Our Vision

• At Oreteti, travel in East Africa is about much more than air-conditioned 4x4 vehicles, luxury hotels and spotting ‘The Big Five’. We believe that a true journey of discovery is one in which: 

• You’re welcomed as a guest, not just a tourist

• You treat local people as human beings, not just snapshots for your album, and take photos with them rather than of them

• You understand and respect local norms and dress codes

• You interact directly with the environment around you without damaging it for future generations, as indigenous communities have done for thousands of years

• You learn the traditional uses and symbolic meanings of animals,birds and plants, e.g. myths, songs, proverbs and local health care systems.

• You have a chance to get involved in practical activities, e.g. making bead jewellery with the Maasai or digging for edible tubers with the Hadzabe, rather than watching staged performances in specially built ‘cultural bomas’

• You find out as much about yourself as you do about ‘the culture’

We also believe that relationships between visitors and local residents should be about dialogue, not exploitation. That’s why we involve local people closely in the planning and implementation of all our village-based cultural programmes, and insist on paying all our staff fairly. We’re creating our own foundation to ensure that at least a 10% share of the profit from all our programmes is directed straight back to the communities involved, supporting pre-primary and adult education with a particular focus on culture, environment and human values.

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Oreteti Saplings Foundation (Miche ya Oreteti)

Oreteti Saplings Foundation, to be launched officially in 2008, is a non-profit organization that aims to ensure that a 10% share of the profit from every Oreteti Cultural Discovery safari or tour is channelled back into the communities where we work. The Foundation’s mission is as follows:

“Promoting holistic education for children and adults that is rooted in human values, indigenous culture and the local environment.”

OSF’s long-term goal is to establish a network of interdependent and mutually supportive pre-primary schools and adult education centres in all of the villages where we operate cultural tourism programmes. The project will bring together community elders, tour guides and promising young leaders – both men and women – to share ideas, skills and knowledge.

This ambitious goal can only be achieved one small step at a time. The funds donated by Oreteti Cultural Discovery and by its clients will help to implement the ‘Nine Strategies’ through which the individual education centres will, over a period of several years, come into existence and be built up into an effective network:

1. Training for each teacher in an innovative program designed by OSF
    

2. Developing curricula for moral, cultural and environmental education
    

3. Creating mother-tongue literacy programs
    

4. A simple building for each school (built from low-cost, locally available materials) together with benches, tables, cupboards, a blackboard, and a desk and chair for the teacher
    

5. A basic set of teaching resources for each school, to include paper, manila card, scissors, glue, colouring pencils, marker pens, exercise books, building blocks, stacking cups, jigsaw puzzles, alphabet letters and numbers, etc
    

6. Construction of a stone circle close to each school, to create a non-denominational sacred space that can be consecrated through prayers and blessings from leaders of different spiritual traditions, and used for shared worship, healing and teaching (trees can gradually be planted around the outer edge of the circle)
    

7. A modest monthly allowance for each of the teachers, topped up by contributions from parents
    

8. A rainwater harvesting tank for each school
    

9. Teachers to encourage, train and support one another through exchange visits and an annual conference (held at a different school each year)

Picture caption: Children at Olomayani Pre-Primary School in Eluwai village, the first school to be supported by OSF, with head teacher Tipilit Leindoi.