What we Do
COBATI is a non-profit tourism NGO established in 1998 to help rural Uganda communities in high tourism potential areas supplement their household incomes through community tourism enterprises. The focus is mainly on empowering women through homestead tourism, handicraft production, and rural hospitality in communities bordering conservation areas and unique cultural sites.
COBATI aims to capture tourism benefits for local people by building their capacity to access the tourism value chain. COBATI identified a gap between mainstream tourism, rural people and community-based products. To fill this gap, COBATI developed a concept for using community tourism as a tool for income generation in rural areas that are especially rich with tourism resources. In 2000, the concept received recognition from the World Bank as a priority area for poverty alleviation.
Since 2005, COBATI has promoted the benefits of community tourism to target communities through mentoring, on spot training, and outreach visits. Initially, the COBATI concept was not supported, as no serious tourism planner at that time considered combining tourism with the traditions and cultures of indigenous peoples or looked at rural communities as viable tourist destinations.
COBATI started out as an idea and the vision of one person, Maria Baryamujura, and has grown into a fully-fledged tourism NGO, recognized locally and internationally. COBATI is recognized for training and empowering communities to harness the economic potential of their natural and cultural resources and endowments. We are innovators in the ways communities can enhance and diversify their tourism services and products.
Where we Work
COBATI promotes sustainable rural tourism development across Uganda. We presently serve central and southwestern Uganda, namely Bombo Town Council, Nyimbwa sub-county in Luwero District and Mbarara Municipality, Kashari county, Kabwohe and Bushenyi Districts.
View Larger Map
Achievements
~ COBATI won the
National Geographic/Ashoka Geotourism Urban Adventure Prize in 2009. The award recognized the COBATI community tourism model which demonstrates how to integrate the “Power of Place” into the travel experience.
~ COBATI was a nominee for the Commonwealth Business Council CBC African Business Awards in 2008 in the Leader in Social Innovation category.
~ In 2006, Maria Baryamujura, COBATI Founder, was elected to the Ashoka Fellowship, a global association of leading social entrepreneurs in recognition of her vision, commitment, and innovative solutions to use tourism as a tool to empower rural people improve their livelihood using their traditional skills, environment, natural and cultural resources as assets.
~ COBATI was a finalist in the World Bank sponsored innovative competition Development Marketplace 2000.