At
least 20 participants including staff and members of the Tumani Tenda community
recently concluded a five-day intensive training aimed at building their
capacity to better improve their camp services to attract more tourists.
The
training was organized by All Gambia Forest Platform, which is the umbrella
body for forestry in The Gambia, and was funded by FAO through Forest and Farm
Facility and coordinated by AGFP.
Speaking
at the training, Ebrima Camara, coordinator for ALL Gambia Forest Platform
(AGFP), spoke extensively about the existence of this body, saying AGFP has
membership comprising community forest committees, user producer group and
forest CBOs.
He said currently, AGFP is the umbrella body
for forestry in The Gambia and its role was to lobby for funding, adding that
this year AGFP secured two funding for their members in Tumani Tenda Ecotourism
Camp and URR Community Forest Association.
Regarding
the Tumani Tenda Camp, he said the project was all about capacity building in
Ecotorism, as Tumani Tenda had been a forest ecotorism based enterprise.
Mr. Camara further stated that since the
inception of Tumani Tenda camp, its committee lacks adequate knowledge to run
the enterprise and they thought it necessary to provide techniques for them for
their management services.
He
said they are currently training them on Ecotorism services including other
related service of Ecotourism; tour guiding, and catering in order to satisfy
the guests that comes to the camp.
He said the project was designed on the need
for the community to look at the information that they receive on a daily basis
and see how best to improve their service
According
to Mr. Camara, the objective of the training is to build the capacity of the
management at the Ecotorism camp and how to provide quality services to their
guests.
He
said revenue generated from the camp is entirely benefiting the community in
terms of education, and in terms of livelihood development and health.
It was on reason that they deemed it wise to
improve its management capacity to better reform the place to provide quality
services to its customers.
He
thanked the FAO though FFF for their constant support, noting that that was not
the first time the community was receiving such support from FAO.