Events

2004: COMMUNITY-BASED TOURISM DEVELOPMENT

MOBILIZATION OF USHAFA WOMEN

Purpose: Mobilization of Ushafa women and youth towards development of their community as a tourist destination

Background: Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) of Nigeria is a popular destination, particularly for business tourists, and Ushafa village is a potential tourism destination within the territory for nature lovers and cultural awareness. Ushafa is a small Gbagi village approximately 10-15 mins drive from the Abuja city center. It has a population of approximately 1200 residents in the Bwari Area Council of the FCT, and the local inhabitants of this village have maintained their culture in its purest form from generation to generation. The village has hosted world leaders, including Bill Clinton and visiting Presidents from several European countries to its various cultural events. Julius Berger, one of the largest construction companies in Nigeria also sends visitors regularly to their private vacation camp on the banks of the lower Usman Dam, near the village.

Usfaha is presently known for its legendary pottery and clay art work, unfortunately this has not been adequately promoted hence the impact on the lives of the community and its tourism potentials is gradually fizzling out. In addition, the female community hunts for natural honey locally for sale to the public virtually in its raw form.
Dewdrop Foundation is a non-profit organization whose focus is on promoting sustainable community-based tourism development and uplifting the standards of living for communities. In Ushafa’s case, there has so far been very little revenue yield for the local inhabitants and villagers.
Our Foundation has therefore identified and selected Ushafa as an ideal destination for our ‘Model’ village for sustainable Tourism development that would benefit all stakeholders especially the local community.The first phase of DDF’s Ushafa project is to conduct an awareness campaign to enlighten the community on the advantages of harnessing the potentials in Agro/ Culture based tourism development and establish a Beekeeping skills training program for the Ushafa women.
This project would boost their revenue generation potentials and mitigate the effects of poverty on their community.The first of the awareness campaign events took place on the 23rd Nov 2003 at the community leader’s the ‘Esu of Ushafa’ palace.

in attendance were:

- Dewdrop Foundation Project Cordinator; Odinakaonye Lagi
- Council Chief: Esu of Ushafa
- Women Leaders: (2) Saratu Daniel, Asibu Chukwudu
- Interpreter: (1) Doris
- Ushafa women and youths (approximately 100 number of people turned up for the meeting)

The Chief, women and youth welcomed the idea of Beekeeping training and skills acquisition whole heartedly, and further expressed their commitment in the development of Ushafa as a tourist destination as they realized the benefits and its poverty alleviation potentials for their community during the question and answer session after the formal presentation by the DDF team.

The next steps/schedule of events for this program has been identified as follows:
Follow-up actions for 2004:

Logistics and planning for Beekeeping training
Beekeeping awareness campaign for other communities
Establishing a Bee Queen rearing plant for easy access to the communities
Establishing a honey-Bee processing plant
Establishing marketing links for Ushafa and other communities involved