ZARA CHARITY GENERAL INFORMATION

Zara Charity aims at supporting vulnerable

groups within their local communities such as orphans, porters who climb Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Meru, marginalized groups like the Maasai women group(Make A Change) and in addition to that, Zara Charity is also supporting the Ngorongoro Marathon which raises awareness against Malaria.

During the last years we have developed our own

projects further. In the following we will give you a summary of what we have done up to now in our individual projects.

This project supports porters who climb Mount Kilimanjaro and Meru due to the fact that most of the porters are low income earners and they have low or no education at all, so the project is aimed at improving the living and working conditions of those porters, especially by providing them the following:

Free education during the low season, such as health education e.g. MALARIA and HIV/AIDS, financial management education, mountain sickness education, environmental conservation education and English.

As of late, all porters have their own bank account and bank card, which will help them to handle their money better; due to this, some of the porters pursue their own businesses, can afford to build their own houses, pay their bills and are taking care of their families in terms of basic needs such as food, shelter, clothes and education material.

In terms of environmental education we have started and partly finished several tree planting projects around Moshi and Karatu (Highview Hotel) in order to raise awareness on environmental problems and to give employment to the porters during the low season.

The porters’ work is not easy; they have to walk in low temperatures and carry a heavy weight. Zara Charity attaches importance to the fact that their maximum weight doesn’t go beyond 25 kilos including their own gear. For the porters’ safety, Zara Charity guarantees, that the following equipment is available:

rain trousers and jackets warm trousers and jackets shoes private bag and take-away food medical check up hiking sticks, gloves and caps

Zara Tours Adventure in Collaboration with Zara Charity is aimed at ensuring a minimum standard of wages. In so doing, we are making sure, that every porter who is registered under the company receives 8,000 Tsh per day. We’re also seeing to it, that as registered porters, they have an identity card and a bank account, which can help us to distribute their salaries on a regular basis. In addition to that, we are able to secure the properly handling of money of our porters.

Applying accordingly to the Tanzania National Parks Act, it is

recommended, that every porter should carry a load limited to 25 kg. This weight includes the company cargo and the porters own gear. Assuring this requirement, our company in collaboration with Zara Charity affirms that the following standards have to be checked together with the visitors from the point of departure at the hotel:

Initially, the whole cargo for the travel has to be prepared According to the number of porters and visitors we have, the load has to

be distributed equally Not to neglect is lastly the weighing of each individual cargo to comply

with the required standards of 20 kg per porter plus 5 kg in addition for the porters own gear

It is not only this individual effort, proposed by the company in collaboration with Zara Charity, but also the management of the respective National Parks, that cares for the compliance with these guidelines. Before entering a park’s gate and climbing the mountain, the parks’ officers are in an endeavor to approve the proposed weight of each cargo.

A tip is not comparable to a contract. The charges depend on the

willingness of each visitor due to various reasons, mentioned below: How the visitors have enjoyed their tour trip in general The visitors contentment depends on the assistance they received during

the trip, but also on the clarification of the natural features observed, on the individual caring in case of accidents or disease and also on the food prepared. Considering these services, the visitors can agree to provide a motivation

to the crew for a well done job. This is the normal process the company is aware of, but in order to assure a fair tip distribution among the employees, the company under Zara Charity has decided to provide a tip sheet. Thereupon, we specified six important employees, such as guide, assistance guide, porter(s), cook, waiter and the toilet porter. Bearing the sheet in mind, the visitors can discuss about the amount of each category. After the crew is back from the trip, the MKPSs office makes sure, that the employees confirm with their signature on the aforementioned sheet the amount of money they received.

We are conscious of the fact that the work which is done by the porters is

hard and exhausting. In order to ensure their safety, the company is checking their clothing and equipment and is adapting it depending on the trip they are going to. There’s a difference between hut and camping route, latter is harsher. At any rate, the following equipment is supposed to be provided to the porters and the guide before their departure:

rain trousers and jackets warm trousers and jackets shoes private bag take away food medical check up hiking sticks gloves caps The mentioned equipment assures the porters safety during and after the

tour trip.

We are conscious of the fact that the work which is done by the porters is

hard and exhausting. In order to ensure their safety, the company is checking their clothing and equipment and is adapting it depending on the trip they are going to. There’s a difference between hut and camping route, latter is harsher. At any rate, the following equipment is supposed to be provided to the porters and the guide before their departure:

rain trousers and jackets warm trousers and jackets shoes private bag take away food medical check up hiking sticks gloves caps The mentioned equipment assures the porters safety during and after the

tour trip.

This project is aimed at supporting orphans within the local community so that they can obtain their basic needs such as food, shelter, clothes, as well as education to improve their living conditions.

Since there is a big request on food in order to satisfy all the children, the orphan center has decided to grow the most needed food on their own and therefore some acres of land were bought in order to plant maize, rice, bananas and onions. Given that the growing of maize was very successful, they were able to feed both the pre school kids and the orphanage for the whole year.

Mr. Victor, who has been working at the Orphan Center for about one year, decided to apply for the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center and has been sponsored by the Kilimanjaro Orphanage center during his studies. Now he has successfully finished his studies and will become a doctor and he’ll also care for the children at the centre.

This project aims at supporting Masai women so as to liberate them from their traditional belief, which is based on oppression, exploitation and elimination of women within their society.

In order to improve this situation and to help the Masai women in Karatu/Ngorongoro, ZARA Charity plans to build an educational training centre for them. It will be built in the Highlands of Karatu. Not only a class room, but also accommodations for students and teachers as well as washing and dining houses have to be built. We hope that the skills learned in the center will help those women to grant their family a better living by establishing their own business or by getting employed.

So as to afford a project like this, some of the Masai women have designed several dresses that have strong influences of the Masai colors and jewelry. The dresses are being sold at Highview Hotel Karatu and Spring land Hotel Moshi, they can also be ordered online. The benefits from the sale will then help to establish the set-up of the educational training centre.

Ngorongoro Marathon was held on 6th April 2013 in Karatu, Arusha region. The race against malaria took place for the sixth year in a row and was organized and sponsored by Zara Tanzania Adventures, Zara Charity, Tigo Tanzania, Chuchu, African Safaris, bougainvillea Safari Lodge, Hans Paul Automechs Limited, and Simba safari. A total of 536 runners participated.

The aim of this annual event is to inform the local community about malaria according to the statistics from FEMA it was found that malaria is a disease which kills more than 650,000 people a year in Africa.

In the Southern Sahara desert 88 million of people live at the risk of getting infected by malaria. It's believed that there are indicators where approximately twenty million people will be infected or suffered from malaria this year.

While in Tanzania only about one person dies every minute due to the disease. It is based on these statistics that we as Zara Tanzania Adventure and Zara Charity decided to initiate this race in terms of ngorongoro Run since 2008 to raise funds that will be used to help communities in Karatu and Ngorongoro for prevention, access to treatment and education about this disease and its risk.

This is the sixth race since its inception and we are grateful for the success we have gained, whereas last year more than 200 international runners were able to share this with the 300 children running and bringing the total participants to 500.

For the money we have raised we managed to do the following: -

Provided mosquito nets for orphans and karatu Hospital.

Assisted in completing construction in the respective maternity wards including ceiling board and windows

Also provided integrated education to the community about how to terminate reproduction of mosquitoes and the importance of prevention against malaria, including encouraging the use of mosquito nets. Through these communities we managed to identify and significantly reduce the prevalence of malaria which has decreased greatly.

Many people are interested in supporting those vulnerable groups in a developing country like Tanzania. We guarantee that those who are in need of help will benefit from the provided assistance.

For further information please visit our

website www.zaracharity.com where you can find each of our Zara Charity member groups that are truly taking responsibility for those vulnerable groups and exhibit high transparency requirements.