AIDS: Fight it – The new Maasai Lion

“The Maasai now have a new enemy. AIDS is the new Lion.
We have to find a way to live with it and keep it under control. The Moran have to save their manhood as protectors of society. They have to become HIV warriors"

(Noted local Maasai Elder)

Basecamp is currently building a new health center in Talek village, near our camp, and we are initiating an awareness program around HIV/AIDS.

HIV/AIDS is rapidly spreading throughout East Africa. It poses an enormous threat to livelihoods and people. Maasailand, at the heart of the region’s wildlife tourism, is now experiencing the early stages of what possibly could become a catastrophic HIV epidemic. HIV- and AIDS-related deaths have now become a sad part of reality also in this region of Africa. We at Basecamp Explorer strongly believe that all organisations and enterprises operating in the region - if they are to be considered responsible at all - must engage in and support local HIV/AIDS and sex-education programs, to protect their workforces and the surrounding communities.

Our project aims not only to improve community health facilities and programs, but also to develop the first joint program on HIV/AIDS awareness between a local health clinic and a community-based tourism operator in Kenya.

Basecamp has therefore entered into a strategic partnership with FEMINA HIP, a multimedia HIV/AIDS initiative, operating out of Tanzania. Through this partnership we will be promoting HIV prevention in the tourism sector in East Africa, starting with projects in the Masai Mara.

Our goal is to have HIV/AIDS-related education and awareness activities become one of the criteria on which an operator or destination is to be evaluated when seeking certification as an “eco-destination" or “eco-tourism" operation.


Partners:
Basecamp Explorer Kenya
Talek community Health Clinic
CMF - Christian Missionary Foundation, Canada
A Better World - NGO, Canada
Ministry of Health, Kenya
FEMINA-HIP, Tanzania

Funding:
Basecamp Explorer Foundation
A Better World
CDF - Community Development Funds (Kenya)
FEMINA-HIP, Tanzania