Our vision for the future:

1. A sustainable and healthy local population where individuals are empowered to make choices regarding their reproductive health and have access to necessary services.

• Provide leading organizations working directly with communities on development and rights issues with training on reproductive health issues

• Ensure reproductive health is integrated across all Dorobo Fund-funded projects

• Support educated and skilled leaders who will advocate on behalf of their communities to bring about positive changes that promote equality and justice

2. Promising youth from marginalized communities have the opportunity to develop into future leaders and activists in their communities

• Provide mentoring and educational sponsorship

3. Cultural Tourism is structured, transparent and the benefits are equitably divided.

• Create an alliance of tour partners/operators and with full local participation; evaluate existing practices such as fees and revenue distribution and consult on their fair distribution

IMPACT

Education is key to protecting the rights, culture and natural resources of vulnerable communities.

In partnership with UCRT, we offer academic scholarships to promising young people from the marginalized communities we work with.

In 2000, Dorobo Fund, in partnership with UCRT, was asked to help identify four girls from the Akie tribe eligible for a free secondary education through the Emusoi Girls Center. To our surprise, not a single girl was eligible for the scholarship because they had not completed their primary education. Recognizing the importance for young girls having access to education, Dorobo Fund started sponsoring the education of 40 Akie girls.

Katerina, one of our scholarship recipients, was selected by the Parliament of Tanzania to participate in the constitutional review process.

“At first, as the only hunter-gatherer out of 628 people, it was hard to get issues relating to my community raised. I felt the Parliament was dominated by politicians who were not fighting for the rights of citizens. UCRT advised and supported me and I started to work with people representing groups, such as farmers and pastoralists. In the end I requested and was granted a special slot to address the Parliament and talk about hunter-gatherers needs and interests. I believe I was successful as hunter-gatherers rights are now protected under the proposed Constitution.”

-Katerina Saruni, sponsored student and Akie hunter-gatherer

For communities to reach their goals of sustainable and equitable resource management, they need people ready to lead and advocate for indigenous rights and values in a modernizing world. The Dorobo Fund supports the education of up to 70 young people each year in hopes they will return to their communities prepared to provide leadership and advocacy on behalf of future generations of indigenous communities. Today over 1000 scholarships have been awarded to young people from indigenous communities in Northern Tanzania.