TALK Tourism in 2013 offers a number of options including private or group tours, full and half day tours, walking tours, cycle tours, drumming workhops, gumboot dancing workshops, art tours, lunch with a Sowetan family and performances by local artists (by arrangement). To book call + 27 (0)11982 2088. TALK Tours is part of the Soweto-based NGO Phaphama Initiatives. Click here for a list of current tours.
Phaphama has worked with and in the Sowetan community for more than 20 years, doing anti-violence, gender reconciliation and youth development work. This makes us part of a network of community-based organisations and families who have a rich experience of sharing their contemporary, urban African life with visitors.
TALK Tourism’s mission is to create inspiring opportunities for indigenous communities in Africa to share their lives with people from different cultures, in ways that generate employment, uphold personal and cultural dignity, and are mutually enriching. We regularly run school and university group trips.
Join a TALK tour which offers:
- a friendly, “in-touch” group leader
- small or larger groups
- a relaxed pace
- a South African partner for every two visitors
- learning to greet in an African language
- lots of opportunity to ask questions
- lunch with a family
- visiting sites of historical interest and community-based projects
- flexibility to suit the interests of visitors
- value for money
All you need to bring is…
An open, enquiring mind and lots of friendliness!
As a genuine community-based tourism initiative, we commit ourselves to contributing 60% of visitors’ fees to local people, while the remaining amount supports our other peace-building work.
Phaphama also receives requests from people from South Africa and other countries wanting to visit a family in Soweto or other rural areas for a day or longer. We can arrange home-stays for people in Soweto, Mnambithi and Mahlabathini, among other places, always using the families of Phaphama helpers, who are remunerated for their service. Visitors are accompanied by trained Phaphama hosts on these trips. As these destinations are not commercial tourist locations, the emphasis is on fitting in with the family and experiencing their daily life, rather than on being treated like a visitor who needs to be waited upon.
Such an exposure provides visitors with an opportunity to meet and spend time with local South Africans. They learn to greet in an African language, acquire an African name and engage in a role-play or two dealing with pertinent cultural issues. The singing too is interactive i.e. the hosts do not merely put on a “show” for the visitors: instead the tourists are taught a few simple songs, including the dance steps to accompany the music. A traditional African meal of inyama, iphalishi, imifino, umsobho, amazambane, ithanga nechakalaka is prepared and served by Phaphama hosts. This is an opportunity for visitors to socialise with local people and ask all the questions they may have about our very special country. In the process, they experience a little of the work of Phaphama i.e. its programmes that transform human relationships in prisons, schools, communities and the corporate sector.
