{"id":54350,"date":"2022-06-29T11:04:08","date_gmt":"2022-06-29T01:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intrepidtravel.com\/adventures\/?p=54350"},"modified":"2024-01-10T07:02:59","modified_gmt":"2024-01-09T20:02:59","slug":"kilimanjaro-porters-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intrepidtravel.com\/adventures\/kilimanjaro-porters-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"How Kilimanjaro’s porters turned to gardening to survive the pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project<\/a> (KPAP) has been improving porters\u2019 lives and fighting for better conditions on Kili since 2003. When the pandemic hit and borders closed in 2020, thousands of porters faced unemployment. KPAP turned to an unusual solution: organic gardening.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Karen Valenti remembers what life used to be like for porters on Tanzania\u2019s Mt. Kilimanjaro. Rewind 20 years, before the Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project<\/a> (KPAP) began, and conditions on the mountain were grim, to say the least.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I came on board in 2004, porters were carrying heavy loads \u2013 more than the industry\u2019s weight limitation,\u201d she says. \u201cThey were only getting one meal a day, sleeping in crowded, poor condition tents, and receiving very low salaries.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Porters carrying heavy loads on Tanzania often face difficult working conditions. Image: KPAP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Karen is the Program Coordinator of KPAP, a local non-government organisation, and Intrepid Foundation partner<\/a>, that has been working to improve the lives of Kilimanjaro\u2019s porters for 20 years. KPAP is based in the small town of Moshi, also known as the gateway to Kili. During trekking seasons before the pandemic, 40,000 to 50,000 travellers would swarm into Tanzania, backpacks stuffed to the gills, ready to tackle Africa\u2019s highest peak: the snow-capped volcano of Kilimanjaro, looming 19,341 feet above the savannah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When those travellers arrive, they\u2019re greeted by an invisible army of porters. No one\u2019s ever taken an accurate census, but Karen estimates there are around 20,000 porters working the mountain each season, servicing between 300 and 400 trekking companies. Forty-eight of these companies, including Intrepid, are partners with KPAP<\/a>, which means their treks meet certain standards for porter welfare, wages and working conditions. The rest are not. Through their partner companies, KPAP looks after approximately 7,150 porters in Tanzania; about a third of the total number working on Kilimanjaro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll climbing companies are welcome to participate with us. It\u2019s free,\u201d Karen says. \u201cUnfortunately only 15% of companies actually participate. For our partners, we monitor every single climb. We have one of our KPAP investigative porters on every trek, making reports and checking conditions on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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During the pandemic, porters were taught the basics of organic gardening. Image: KPAP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When COVID struck in 2020, KPAP was faced with an unprecedented threat: a complete and indefinite shutdown of the Kilimanjaro trekking industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the 20,000 porters on the mountain, whose seasonal income largely came from tourism, this was obviously a looming disaster. However, at least initially, the timing seemed fortunate: COVID hit Tanzania in March and April 2020, just as the high climbing season was wrapping up. Porters were used to work slowing down in the middle of the year, and Tanzania\u2019s president, the famous COVID-sceptic John Magufuli, was downplaying the significance of the virus. Nobody worried too much. It wasn\u2019t until June and August arrived without a single traveller that the new reality sunk in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s when people started to see how it would affect business,\u201d says KPAP Program Manager Kelvin Salla. \u201cJune to September 2020, that was the worst season ever recorded \u2013 a complete shutdown of trekking. Porters could suddenly see that the pandemic was real. We were in a bit of a crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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KPAP taught 344 porters how to grow their own food, and 813 gardens were created as a result. Image: KPAP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

KPAP had been forewarned, thanks to the Board members of their parent organisation in America, and quickly set to work, translating COVID safety precautions into Swahili and distributing them to porters through their partner network. The message went out to the mountain crew: this thing is coming, it\u2019s real, and we need to be ready for it. Thoughts then turned to money. Without trekkers, porters and their families would need new sources of income, not to mention better financial literacy. Most porters in Tanzania only have a primary school education, and KPAP discovered many didn\u2019t know how to budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe immediately started a budgeting and money management class, designed by accountants,\u201d Karen says, \u201cand the funny thing was, the porters would take this class and come to us and say, \u2018Why haven\u2019t you taught us this before? This is great!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next, KPAP worked with a local NGO in Arusha to offer free organic farming workshops for porters. The goal was to help people grow enough to support their families \u2013 on average, each porter has four or five mouths to feed \u2013 and possibly generate some immediate income. To grow something that would sell<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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