Uplifting Communites

On the 27th of April every year South Africans celebrate freedom day. This is in commemoration of the first post-apartheid elections held in South Africa in 1994, which saw Nelson Mandela become South Africa's first freely elected president. Here in the Crags on the Garden Route of South Africa, Birds of Eden, the biggest free flight Aviary in the world, celebrated both Freedom Day and the coming of the 2010 World Cup Soccer with the release of 32 new bird species to the existing 280 into the aviary. This brought the total bird count up to over 3000 birds!

The idea behind the 32 species is to represent the 32 countries competing in the 2010 soccer world cup. The bird releases were carried out by underpriviliged children, various NGO's and tourism bodies, releasing birds every five to ten minutes. Early morning the SABC crew were there, providing a LIVE feed for the Morning Live show, for the rest of South Africa to see.

It is nice to see that a backpackers does more than just have a party every night.  At Starling Backpackers, Vicky has started a community project, that aims to help underprivileged kids buy school uniforms.  

They have a unique idea of using old plastic bags collected from the streets, and re-using them to make cool bags, ideal for almost any casual purpose. 

This not only gives back to the community, but also empowers them buy teaching skills and creating more jobs, that are desperately needed. 

But this is not the only community project started at a backpackers.  It is becoming more and more common to see backpackers getting into community work, like projects in Chintsa in the Eastern Cape and another very interesting backpackers project in Soweto.

Hello from Lebo's !

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Overview

Whilst being a craft seller at the Hector Pieterson memorial in the township of Soweto and interacting with tourists on a daily base, Lebo went on his first backpacking excursion with fellow craft sellers to the Drakensberg, and got  first hand knowledge as to what a Backpackers really is.

Lebo started hosting the random guest in 1999 at his grandmothers house in Orlando West, as there was nowhere for travellers to stay in Soweto. Realising the need for a backpackers in Soweto, Lebo founded "Lebo's Soweto Backpackers", the first black owned backpackers in South Africa in August 2003.