We recognise that the need for more conservation and community development programmes to be embedded within the tourism industry, now more than ever, is crucial. Local rural communities are in need of support, not charity, but to be given the chance to be empowered and alleviated from the difficulties that they are faced with.  To this end, we have formed the The Hide Community Trust – a non-profit organisation, committed to conservation and sustainable community development.

The Hide Community Trust is a non-profit organisation that was established in 2015 by The Hide Safari Camp. The aim of The Hide Community Trust is to support rural communities who live amongst wildlife on the borders of Hwange National Park to ensure the long-term conservation of the natural resource base while facilitating sustainable community development.

The fractured state of the Zimbabwean economy has had detrimental effects on these rural communities and as a result, the natural resource base has suffered. People living in rural communities are not able to meet their basic human needs and women, in particular, have been completely disempowered in their efforts to feed, support and educate their children.

The core ethos of the Trust is that effective and long-term conservation cannot exist without sustainable community development. We believe in primarily working with women because they have a real need to provide for their families however most often it is the women who are uneducated and unemployed. Due to the AIDS epidemic that Zimbabwe faces many women are left widowed with increased expectations to provide for their families. Zimbabwe has a very high unemployment rate and even if educated, they still often struggle to find jobs.

The Hide Community Trust truly believes that conservation and community not only can but must work for hand in hand and it is this belief that has driven great efforts over the past few years. The trust aims to help empower women, their children and ultimately the community at large. With groups of women and men working together, we are building a model of regenerative sustainability that we hope can be replicated countrywide.