Garden Party and Benefit

On Tuesday night, about a hundred friends of FoTZC came together to celebrate community development projects and to kick off COCOBA (community conservation banking) in the Loliondo area. We had a silent auction including paintings and paper art by three Tanzania artists we know, as well as a stunning selection of African masks from the Private Collection of the late Dr. Farish Jenkins. We also had Thomson Safarisstaff members selling jewelry and other beaded handicrafts made by Tanzanian women.

The main attraction was our panel of speakers, which included Dr. Ken Dial, a Conservation Biologist at the University of Montana, Daniel Yamat, a Maasai elder from Tanzania, and video interviews with Atwitye Makwetta, the Dean of Business at Mount Meru University. WBUR’s Tom Ashbrook led a lively discussion on empowering women in Tanzania, and how conservation and tourism both play a role in this type of development.

We’ve included one of the video clips of Atwitye speaking about women in Tanzania so you can get a feel for the issues that the panel addressed.