Our Approach: Fair and sustainable tours on an equal footing!
With your supports, Mingle Africa is going to become the first specialised outbound tour operator for educational tours to African countries and the first company that offers an alternative to short-term voluntourism stays. Our tours differ from existing tours due to well-founded educational content. We avoid Africa-clichés and stereotypes and ensure that the tours are being designed sustainably. It is important to us that all people involved in tourism benefit our tours equally.
Therefore, we have designed two products, aiming at different customer groups. Firstly, our “Campus”, for high-school graduates and young adults who would like to gain international experience in an African country; Secondly, our educational tours, for all adults who appreciate in-depth insight into cultural aspects of their chosen destination.
Further information on our Website (German) and (D/EN).
1. Campus ( age 18 – 25 )
The campus offers young adults the opportunity to participate in a six week seminar- and workshop program in an African country to learn about global and developmental issues.
Further information regarding the program here (German)
It is important to us that we learn from the local people. We never intend to lecture. That’s why we work closely with local experts who provide the participants with their view on developmental and global challenges.
In practise that means that we are e.g. looking into:
Which challenges exist regarding environmental protection and how local initiatives take on those challenges in their home countries.
In Uganda our participants get the opportunity to work with a group of 14 young and vibrant artist who are engaged in environmental education. The group, EcoArt, surrounding the eco-artist Ruganzu Bruno Tusingwire, creates impressive artwork, using recycled PET-bottles. In Kampala they e.g. created an entire playground for local kids.
The visit abroad differentiates the images the participants have of the African continent. They directly learn from local people and become multipliers which oppose the Eurocentric vision of the world in Germany. Instead, they are able to provide a more realistic and diverse understanding of African societies. The fact how helpless European counties are in managing the current “refugee crisis” is just one example that illustrates how important it is to foster a change in perceptions within our society. We do need people that are able to recognize and analyse global interconnections, act responsibly and advocate change actively.
We hope to give impetus for changes within the tourism industry and beyond.
2. Educational Tours (for adults)
Our educational tours consist of various tour building blocks, including political & historical aspects, architecture & urban development, arts & culture, natural resources & environment. The tours offer an experience apart from mainstream tourism.
Apart from common sight seeing sites, we include further highlights in our tours such as:
- Meeting eye witnesses of historic events. E.g. people that were active in the anti-apartheid struggle and did experience 16 June 1976 in Soweto.
- Visit a small chocolate manufacturer in Uganda and gain an understanding of the challenges of manufacturing industries in developing countries
- Walk around Johannesburg, accompanied by a local artist and discover public art and graffiti all around the city
- Visit a working diamond mine in South Africa and learn about the challenges of blood diamonds in African countries.
- Attend a comedy show in Kampala or Cape Town and discover new views on political and historical events
- See a play in one of the theatres e.g. the National Theatre in Kampala or the Artscape Theatres in Cape Town.
- Visit contemporary art galleries and attend a vernissage
- Attend a reading of a local writer
- Go on a cooking safari in Cape Town and learn more about the Cape Malay Society.
- Go to live concerts such as jazz in Cape Town or kwaito in Soweto.
- Get an insight into rural agriculture by visiting a farm.
Our critique regarding the status quo in the tourism industry
There are plenty of companies offering educational tours within Europe. The African continent however is mostly being reduced to wildlife, landscape and “exoticism”. Modern trends within African countries, positive developments and old advanced civilizations are hardly part of our Eurocentric view of African countries and are mostly being ignored by the tourism industry. Existing products within the tourism industry often even reinforce our biased understanding of Africa nothing but a poor continent. Mingle Africa breaks with the usual stereotypes and invites tourists to experience a very diverse continent with a rich history and cultural heritage. We will start offering tours to countries we have lived in ourselves such as Uganda and South Africa.
For some years, short-term voluntourism stays have become increasingly popular, especially among high-school graduates. These fast-track volunteer stays are even possible for a week. Going on holiday and doing some good? Sounds great.
But “well meant” is not necessarily the same as “well executed”. The local organisation or project often only receives a couple of euros for taking in those volunteers. Volunteers do not have to provide a certificate of good conduct or need to have any pedagogic experience, even when working in social institutions such as orphanages, schools or caring for street kids. In most cases these volunteers need more supervision than they are actually able to contribute. Several NGOs such as “Brot für die Welt” therefore warns against volunteer stays in social institutions. We have to ask ourselves if we would allow new interns coming into an orphanage every couple of weeks in Germany or if we would be fine with having a new unqualified teacher teach our kids in primary school on a frequent basis? These stays mostly cater for the interests of the volunteers. Voluntary work and international experience looks great on any CV. But quite often, the volunteers end up being frustrated, disappointed and emotionally stressed due to lack of preparation. By not going into those countries to teach, but actually to learn, Mingle Africa offers a new approach for young people who want to gain experience in an African country.
Why are we an EcoCrowd Project?
We do consider ecological, economic and social aspects of sustainability.
In designing our tours we pay special attention to creating products that avoid any negative impacts within our destinations, including economic, social and environmental aspects, e.g. by having small groups (4-9 people during our educational tours & 9-12 people during our Campus) and exclusively using local guides during our tours etc. To ensure providing a sustainable product, Mingle Africa will apply to be CSR-certified after the first year in business by TourCert. Therefore all criteria relevant to the certification process will be considered in developing our products.
The following are just some aspects that will be considered:
How much CO2 does the trip produce?
Long distance flights can’t be avoided when traveling to an African country. But the negative impact can be reduced. We therefore inform our clients about possibilities to compensate e.g. with atmosfair and MyClimate. By including a CO2 Calculator on our website, we enable our customers to monitor their own impact. Due to the impact on the climate, our tours have a minimum duration of 15 days. Shorter trips are not being offered by Mingle Africa due to climate protection. We also do not offer domestic flights during our tours and instead of offering sight-seeing trips by car; we include walking tours, walking safaris and bicycle tours to explore the cities.
How do we select our partners and accommodation places?
To us it is important to strengthen the economic structures of our destinations. Therefore we only work with locally owned partner organisations and accommodation places, preferably those that are certified themselves. In South Africa for instance, we do work with partners that have been certified by the fair trade tourism organisation. It is our belief that as much money as possible should stay within our destinations. That’s why we choose accommodations that are being owned by local people.
In regard to accommodations, it is important to us that they do work ecosensitive. This means for example that they save water and energy e.g. when cleaning the rooms, doing the laundry.
Another challenge in many African cities is waste disposal. We make sure to not contribute to this problem by e.g. encouraging accommodation places to not use individually portioned food for breakfast, by introducing waste separation and environment friendly waste disposal.
Does the food in typical restaurants really come from local production?
European agricultural subsidies lead to imported goods being cheaper than locally produced products. In many African countries the rural population battles to sustain their livelihood because of this. The consequences are rural flight, urbanisation combined with social problems and poverty migration to European countries. We therefore place importance on regional and fair trade products when catering for our clients.
How do we support species protection?
Flora and fauna are important assets for tourism to Sub-Sahara Africa. Almost every tourist wants to see the Big Five or gorillas. In choosing our partners we make sure, that they actively support conservation and raise awareness. We don’t just go on a safari; we make sure that our clients learn about challenges and initiatives involved in environmental protection. E.g. conflicts of interests between national parks and the rural population or international trafficking of ivory. By offering and promoting responsible tourism, we make sure that we contribute to the protection of natural resources and the diverse ecosystems.
What about child labour?
We make sure that no child labour goes into our value chain, by working with small and certified partner organisations and knowing our partners personally.
Privacy and dignity of local people:
Poverty tourism, meaning the consumption of poverty as a tourist attraction, is a problem in many African countries, e.g. during township tours by bus in South Africa. People living in the townships hardly receive a cent, most of the money payed stays with the tour operator. But township tourism can be done responsibly. We therefore work with small partners, offering bicycle or walking tours and actually staying in the townships overnight. By doing so, we make sure that we actually generate income within townships.
Are local heritage sites being preserved?
As a tour operator for educational tours, cultural heritage sites are an important asset to us. Given the fact that we do know our destinations very well personally, we include smaller and less known heritage sites in our tours. By doing so, we ensure that these heritage sites are being supported financially and can be preserved for future generations.
What about transparency?
We disclose how much of the price for our tours remains within the destinations, how much money Mingle Africa generated and what the money is being used for.
What are we going to do with the money?
As young entrepreneurs we do lack equity. Apart from a lot of knowhow and enthusiasm we managed to invest 12500 Euro of savings into our start-up. The majority will be covered through a loan by the KfW bank. That means that each of us takes a loan for 35.000 Euro. We do believe in our idea and are ready to take responsibility for it.
Every cent that is being raised by this crowd funding campaign raises our equity and enables us to be more independent. The money is being used to pay for:
Our website (including a booking system): 8000 Euro
Visit educational fares in 2016: 4500 Euro
Promotional material: 2500 Euro = 15000 Euro
Who are we?
We, that’s Tatjana Spähn (31y) and Nora Witt (30y). We got to know each other when doing our Bachelor degree in “African Development Studies in Geography”. During our studies we focussed on development approaches in African countries. Due to our minor in “African History and Religions” and “African Cultures and Societies”, we do have a lot of knowledge regarding our destinations and are very aware of existing stereotypes. We will start offering tours to destinations where we used to live and work, including: Uganda, South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Ethiopia.
After finishing high-school, Tatjana moved to Namibia for one year. In between Bachelor and Master, she lived in Uganda for three years. She started off as an intern with the Goethe Centre in Kampala, before becoming a product manager for a local tour operator. In her free time she got passionate about organizing the music festival “This is Uganda”. The artistic and cultural milieu of our destinations is something she is very passionate about. After coming back to Germany she did her masters degree in “Sustainable tourism management”, writing her thesis about sustainability in business plans.
When Nora was 17, she did a high-school exchange year in a South African Township. During her studies she focused a lot on poverty tourism, writing her bachelor thesis about the impact of township-tourism in Soweto (South Africa). Currently she is doing her Ph.D. in African sciences/ political sciences, writing about Zimbabwe. In between she did a number of interships in development aid and worked e.g. for the Centre for International Migration and Development (CIM). She has also worked for several exchange organizations and is highly aware of the challenges young people face when going abroad.
I don’t get the payment process! It’s all in German!
Don’t worry, it’s easy….
First you choose your reward. You can choose between:
5€: an SMS wishing a good night (don’t worry it won’t be in German)
15€: A hand writing postcard from us from South Africa
25€: A toy animal out of recycled flip flops from South Africa
25€: A Mingle Africa jute bag with a street art motive, exclusively designed by an Ugandan Artist
35€: An upcycling bag from South Africa out of old cans
50€: A Mingle Africa T-Shirt with a street art motive exclusively designed by an Ugandan Artist
100€: A home cooked South African/ Ugandan Dinner at our place where you can ask us anything J
200€: Visit our prep seminar in Berlin/ Brandenburg for one day and get an insight into our work
300€: Place an advertisement or link on our homepage.
3500€: Become one of our first customers. You receive a voucher of a 15 day educational tour to South Africa (without flight).
4000€: Get a voucher for the Campus or donate your voucher as a scholarship to one of the participants, not having the necessary financial means.
Found something? Great! Now you click the button: “Projekt unterstützen und dieses Tauschgut wählen”.
Then you’ll see the following screen:
After having filled everything in, press “weiter” (= continue)
After scrolling through the entire page and battling your way through the entire German payment process J you are now only a few clicks away from becoming our personal hero.
If you check the box, your name will appear in the list of contributors. Click “weiter” again, and you will be redirected to the payment method you selected. From then on everything should be in English. Congratulations!