African Bush Camps (ABC) is an award-winning safari collection of luxury camps and lodges in Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Botswana. The company aims to offer authentic, bespoke African safari experiences while providing guests with all the comforts suitable for the modern-day traveller. All while exploring the most majestic parts of Southern Africa.

In 2006, ABC launched the African Bush Camps Foundation. The foundation’s work is largely centred around creating opportunities that empower rural communities situated in vulnerable wildlife areas, in and around our areas of operation. Our foundation has multiple projects running and you can find more information on each project on the African Bush Camps Foundation website.

Every year, African Bush Camps donate 2.5% of their annual turnover to their foundation projects. External donations are always welcome and assist the foundation in identifying needs, skills, and resources within communities while forging meaningful partnerships among all stakeholders involved.

The African Bush Camps Foundation

The African Bush Camps Foundation is a registered non-profit organization that has been in operation since 2006. The Foundation’s mission is to partner with communities that are located near our camps to improve quality of life and achieve long term conservation through programs focusing on Education, Community Empowerment, and Conversation
We have projects running in Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Botswana that focus on addressing challenges that include unemployment, food scarcity, poor education and health care infrastructure, low school attendance and dropouts due to financial constraints, wildlife poaching, and preserving natural resources.

Education, Community Empowerment, and Conservation in Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Botswana

Sharing and Conserving Africa together is the ABC way. Our purpose as an organization is evident in the projects and initiatives that our foundation has pioneered and supported over the past 17 years.

In November 2021, we launched a female safari guide project that is targeted at creating job opportunities for local women as safari guides. This two-year program aims to develop female safari guides through skills training, mentorship, job shadowing, and rotations at African Bush Camps. Through this project, we are actively contributing towards addressing gender inequality in the safari guide’s sector by creating access and opportunity for women who are interested in pursuing a career in this field. Our goal is to develop 25 female guides in this community by 2025. We have great expectations for this project, hoping that it will be a catalyst for other safari companies in the area to invest in female talent, opening doors for more female guides to access work opportunities in various regions in Africa.

Our Maunga clinic in Zambia is a fully equipped medical facility with a maternity ward, solar power, access to water, ablution facilities, and is equipped with medical supplies and resources to serve the community. This clinic is currently assisting 15 patients a day. The clinic was built as a response to the lack of access to medical services for the 50 households living in Maunga village. The local community no longer travels 12.2 miles (20 KM) to access medical facilities and resources. Our ongoing active investment in infrastructure development and resourcing in local clinics provides the platform to intentionally contribute to the quality and standard of the health care that is available to our communities.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to have a devastating impact on the livelihoods of poor communities and individuals who rely on tourism as a source of income to feed their families. This has a knock-on effect on wildlife, as animal poaching is steadily increasing. We are seeing more wildlife shootings in our parks for meat supplies as the community is actively poaching animals in a desperate attempt to feed their families. In the past two years, animal poaching has increased in our parks. An average of 20 elephants are poached for commercial purposes every year, and small antelope and bushmeat are also poached by the community format.

As part of our ongoing commitment to putting an end to wildlife poaching, we built an additional anti-poaching unit in 2021, giving the national parks in Zimbabwe additional capacity. The unit is a fully equipped and resourced anti-poaching operation base. We also launched a Ranger Protein Supplement Program as part of our support for 80 Rangers and their families who live and co-exist alongside the wildlife in the parks. For the preservation of wildlife, we have also stopped the harvesting of animals in the parks by providing an alternative source of protein.

Leaving our communities in a better place than we found them, is our collective responsibility, and at ABCF we are determined to create opportunities for everyone to get involved. By booking your African safari and visiting our ABC camps in Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, you are already helping us make a meaningful impact in the communities around our camps.