Community Development

Community engagement efforts reach over 45,000 people through collaborative meetings that cover issues such as human rights, grievance mechanisms, family planning, and environmental stewardship. More than 37,000 people receive health care every year from Majete-supported clinics and Ministry of Health workers, while access to potable water is provided through the provision of boreholes sunk in community areas where needed.

In and around the reserve, economic opportunities are constantly improving and benefitting thousands of people, who have also been supported by education, healthcare facilities and a profit-sharing scheme in the growing tourism sector. 

© Thoko Chikondi

African Parks staff engaging with local community members in Majete

Communities participate in decision-making related to management of the reserve and the natural resources around it. To facilitate this, Majete has a governance structure comprising 21 Community Based Organisations (CBOs), serving as liaisons between African Parks, local communities and other partners. These in turn are represented under the Majete Wildlife Reserve Association (MWRA), a forum for the exchange of knowledge, experiences and challenges. The Majete team provides regular updates about the reserve, where the communities can give feedback and make requests.

In Malawi, children in rural communities have little access to good education, with low enrolment in secondary and tertiary level education, often due to lack of funds for tuition. Majete’s scholarship programme provides tuition fees for some 120 students a year, enabling them to attend school at secondary or university level.  

Environmental education programmes focus on creating environmental awareness amongst school children. This is done in conjunction with regular school visits to the reserve; around 2,000 children visit annually.  Wildlife Clubs are run in every school in the catchment area around the reserve, encouraging children to experience and care for wildlife as well as brainstorm solutions to environmental challenges. Over 15,000 students are being mentored in their own environmental projects. In 2024, staff members gave motivational talks at eight schools, describing the important relationship between Majete and surrounding communities. 

A pesticide awareness and poison response training workshop was held in 2024, where Community Extension teams, wildlife monitoring teams and representatives from the Department of Agriculture came together with the Endangered Wildlife Trust to learn about the dangers and alternatives of environmentally destructive pesticides. They also workshopped solutions to roll out changes within their communities, including mass awareness meetings, posters, and radio announcements. This forms part of a long-term project aimed at reducing toxins in the ecosystem that impact key species, oxpeckers in particular.

© Naude Heunis

Community beekeeping project in Majete

Majete has been investing in extensive livelihood programmes aimed at improving the reliability of food production, increasing income-generation opportunities and reducing the reliance on illegal resource harvesting by providing sustainable economic opportunities. Sustainable enterprise initiatives reached 1,211 people in 2024 — double the number in the previous year — diversifying income means and skillsets through projects such as elephant dung papermaking, beekeeping, fish farming, irrigation schemes, poultry clubs, and goat pass-on schemes. 

In 2024, 11 community-based organisations planted over 23,000 indigenous trees in villages and schools with seedlings provided by the reserve.

One of Majete’s main community enterprises is beekeeping, a social enterprise that empowers communities through the production and sale of high-quality organic honey as a source of income. Other initiatives include climate-smart agriculture and fish farming, where Majete provides infrastructure including solar-pumped boreholes and water storage facilities, fishponds, fingerlings and fish food, as well as agricultural training. Sustainable use of natural resources, such as thatching grass and bamboo from inside the reserve, is managed as well as the reforestation projects that will provide a sustainable source of timber for the communities.