How Monika Fox turned from tourist to women entrepreneurship mentor

Located in the Manyara region, this park is the 6th largest in Tanzania. She also visited Lake Manyara, which is thought to have been named after a local dialect ‘Manyero’ meaning a place where animals drink water.

Accompanied by guides who kept sharing interesting facts about Tanzania, Monika was hooked by what she saw, and for the very first time, this Canadian lady saw the animals in their natural habitat, free of the restraints she saw in the zoos in her country. “I think seeing these animals on safari has made me more anti-zoos than before,” she said.

It was Monika’s first time riding in an open-roof safari vehicle, a spectacular view as they were passing through the baobab trees looking at the majestic elephants and giraffes wandering free.

Since then, she has been coming back to Tanzania. On her inaugural visit, she came to help women in rural areas access microloans, where she noticed the women receiving these loans fell into deeper debt. She said most didn’t understand about interest rates on loan repayment; consequently, she came back and established ‘Give Heart to Africa.’

 With a business background, Monika knew she had to do something, and the intention of starting ‘Give Heart To Africa’ was to serve as a women’s empowerment initiative that would teach various vocation skills to women and turn the disadvantaged young ladies into skilled entrepreneurs, and for the one year of studies, these ladies wouldn’t pay a cent.

That was 15 years ago; now this one tourist community and friends have been able to build a truly transformative initiative that has changed the lives of women in Moshi.

Elephants are known to be communal animals; they form a strong bond and cooperate closely with each other, some of the facts that made Monika fall in love with the animals, and she makes a point of seeing them whenever she comes to Tanzania on her yearly visit. ‘The fact that they are led by a matriarch and live like a community made me love them even more,’ she chimed.

She attentively listened to all the facts the guides were telling her about elephants, and Monika was eager to share. She said when elephants get older, that is, at the age of 50, they leave Serengeti to go to the crater, which serves as their ‘retirement home.’

She was amazed to learn that elephants communicate by stomping the ground, and they even bury their dead by covering their corpses with branches and even mourn for a week. On a lighter note, she laughed when she learnt of the lore about her favourite animals being a ‘bunch of drunks,’ who get intoxicated when they eat fermented marula fruits that fall to the ground.

 Though this lore has been debunked by some scientific research, it adds to the stories about these gentle giants who rule the plains of Tanzania.

She gives props to the safari guides, who have always shown the highest standard of professionalism and are very knowledgeable. “These guides are from very reputable tourism colleges like Mwika College of Wildlife, and they truly know what they are doing,” she added.

Some facts she learnt while visiting Serengeti National Park were that, in the great migration of wildebeests and other grazers, the wildebeest are often accompanied by Zebras, the reason being that Zebras cannot see well and wildebeests cannot hear well, so together they make a great pair and help each other navigate through the journey but also evade predators.

For all the years she has been coming to Tanzania, Monika has a lot of adventure stories; she remembers one nail-biting incident when her tent flooded, just an unexpected occurrence that she remembers, but the most unforgettable incident is just the calm she feels when she watches the wild animals while she is relaxing in the safari cruiser. Similarly, she likes the feeling when she goes back to town after a safari and sees the initiative she started and what they have been able to achieve for the last 15 years.

These young women in Moshi have turned their fate around, and most have started their businesses from the Moshi Women’s Arts & Crafts Co-operative that was launched in 2014, where graduates find employment and practice their vocational and business skills, to Lala Salama Spa that is owned and operated by Lisa, a graduate of the ‘Give Heart to Africa’ training.

 The spa is situated in a location that conveniently serves the Kilimanjaro climbers and safari tourists. Together there have been 24 businesses and seven cooperatives and educated more than 1000 women, all coming from an ambitious effort from a visitor who looked beyond the national parks and decided to engage with the community.

She still believes there is room for growth; she envisions having more businesses started by the women who go through their training; she would like to see a centre where all these enterprises come together and coexist and people can just go and see everything under one roof. As well as cooperate and help each other grow.

Tanzania receives tens of thousands of tourists from across the globe, nevertheless, Monika is among the few who are beyond the pleasure of basking under the sun at the beach or taking pictures of our majestic animals as they ride through the national parks. She belongs to the few who extend a hand to the community and leave a lasting impact.

She hopes that more tourists will do a little bit on their part for the community. She said if tourists don’t know how they can reach out to them, they will gladly direct them on how they can connect with the local communities and see how one can even volunteer and serve the people in any capacity they can.

“I think that will make their trip much more meaningful; I think we are all becoming more cognisant of our carbon footprint and sustainability; I think this will make one feel the trip had a greater impact than just seeing the animals,” she concluded.