Tumani Tenda community embarks on Ecotourism capacity building

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.