Five Programs Paving the Way for Gender Equality Worldwide | Travel

When Oren Blindell, a sales team leader for Exodus Adventure Travels, set out to climb Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro on a group excursion in 2022, she knew that this particular expedition would be extremely special. That’s because senior guide Lucia Kivoi would be leading the trip. Born in Arusha, the capital of Tanzania’s northern safari circuit, Kivoi had earned the nickname “Lioness” for becoming one of the first female porters—and, later, guides—escorting small groups to the summit of 19,341-foot-tall Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa. Only a decade earlier, it was virtually unheard of to have a woman working on Kilimanjaro’s slopes. But Kivoi was changing the narrative—and challenging gender norms, promoting gender equality and empowering women in the process.

“I’d been wanting to climb Kilimanjaro for a long time,” says Blindell. “But when my friend Jess and I found out we could book a female-led departure, we jumped at the chance. To see women, who make up only 18 percent of the whole staff of Kilimanjaro, bringing teams up the mountain? That just really inspired and appealed to us.”

With an estimated 30,000 to 50,000 people climbing Mount Kilimanjaro annually, there’s a real need for guides and porters. “Mount Kilimanjaro has always been a traditionally male-dominated place,” says Rochelle Turner, head of sustainability and community at Exodus Adventure Travels. “While local men were working on the mountains, the women were at home, having babies and looking after their families.” Yet, today, many of these women are unmarried single mothers and widows who are running their households on their own and struggling to stay afloat, since female economic opportunities in Tanzania are still extremely limited. Becoming a porter or guide on Kilimanjaro can provide them a stable source of income in an environment that’s right in their own backyard.

In 2020, the Exodus Travels Foundation—a separate entity from Exodus Adventure Travels that offers financial support for community building and grassroots…