ABCF Female Guides Program: Changing the Face of the Safari Industry

‘When we inspire others to understand and value women’s inclusion, we forge a better world.  And when women themselves are inspired to be included, there’s a sense of belonging, relevance, and empowerment.’ International Women’s Day 2024  

Our Female Guides program aims to cultivate women guides in an industry that has long been resistant to them – more than 90% of the safari guides in the region were male and less than 5% of women receive regular training and development to become safari guides. Through skills training, mentorship, job shadowing, and rotations at African Bush Camp, our goal is for a minimum of 25% of our guides to be women by 2030.  

Join us on our Women Empowerment Safari to see first-hand how we are changing the face of the safari industry.  As part of this booking, we’ll donate USD 5,000 to the African Bush Camps Foundation to fund the tuition, training, and licensing of one female guide to become a certified and licensed safari guide. 

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Our Female Guides program is a two-year course that offers theory, practical, and on-the-job training at ABC camps to become a safari guide. Participants undergo four weeks of theory and four weeks of practical safari training with the African Guiding Academy and one week of Mokoro training before they start as trainee guides at African Bush Camps. Here, they gain professional experience in travel and tourism. Through mentorship and personal relationships, we aim to boost their confidence and build a competent group of female safari guides.

We launched our second cohort of female guides in Botswana with a new intake of 3 guides in July 2022.  Our new intake of guides have been learning the ins and outs of the guiding industry and are becoming experts in critical skills such as wildlife, conservation, safe practices, photography, natural history, tracking, communication, and the mokoro.

The growth and expansion of the program to Zambia is another significant step towards developing female talent in a largely male-dominated industry. We have partnered with Butterfield & Robinson who will be sponsoring two female guides for the next three years and Steppes Travel who are sponsoring two female guides for 2023.

We are hoping to see the launch of female guides in Zimbabwe in the coming years. This will complete our foundation’s vision to have female guides in all three regions in which we operate and develop more diverse talent in our business and the safari industry at large.