Promote female guides, deliver hands-on training programs and provide employment opportunities for women in tourism in Tanzania. 

The Tanzania Women Guides Foundation is a non-profit registered organization adhering to Tanzania’s Non-profit Organizations Laws (00009944).

The Foundation works in partnership with AdventureWomen Africa, a full service Tanzanian tour operation company, to promote female guides, deliver hands-on training programs and provide employment opportunities for women. 

Empower women to work in all leadership positions.

Our goal is to empower women to work in all leadership positions in the country’s adventure tourism industry and not just in the traditionally gendered roles such as housekeeping, waitressing, cooking or souvenir selling. 

Women are notoriously missing from positions of power in the industry in general and in Kilimanjaro in particular and we want to change that. 

Masculinization of the trekking industry 

Society expects the mountaineering industry to be a place for men because of the physical demands and conditions of the job. Porters are expected to carry heavy equipment, food, and personal gear all the way to the top of Kilimanjaro and for days at a time. 

The sleeping conditions, in caves, harsh environments and in shared tents along with the common latrines, further validated the myth and convinced women that this was not a place for them. 

Shared washing and sleeping facilities means operators need to carry separate sets of latrines and tents for women and for men, doubling the cost of operation of a trek that has porters and guides from both genders.

As a result, trekking operators have historically favored men and left women out of the industry. These unfavorable factors also affect the safari industry. 

Many lodges, especially in the budget range, will provide mixed accommodation for guides, with men and women sleeping in shared dorms with bunk beds. Accommodating women in separate rooms, often means choosing higher end safari lodges or paying for a regular room.

This means women are relegated to the burden of higher operational costs which forces operators to choose men instead.

Here are other contributing factors:

Social Cultural Belief 

The tour guide occupation is viewed unfavorably for women because the social fabric of society is not wired to see a woman out in the mountains working with men who are not their spouses or relatives while leaving their family behind for up to ten days. 

The clients they guide become their focus and this commitment conflicts with the norms of our cultural beliefs that women should be staying home taking care of their families, farms and other household obligations. 

Additionally, for a woman to stay out of the house during dark is regarded as immoral and it was unheard of decades ago, thus validating once again the belief that tour guiding is a male territory.

Traditional Beliefs 

For thousands of years women have been viewed as weak and unstable, but with a distinct place in society. They are credited for being good homemakers and wonderful mothers, but  this requires them to work close to home as they are the backbone of the family and community at large. 

These beliefs have been passed down for generations and have seen women stuck in traditional tasks such as housekeeping, waitressing and working in a static location without the ability to travel, an essential requirement of guiding, or progressing to positions of responsibility and power where they would oversee teams. 

As a result, these higher positions have been left to their male counterparts.