Our BluePrint
UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Africa are under threat as never before. With deterioration from conflict, climate change, natural disasters and modern development's blithe indifference, many fear the historical markers of ancient cities will soon disappear after existing on the planet for thousands of years.
It is at this crisis point we enter. To create the boldest preservation, conservation and tourism development project in Africa that would not only reverse the sad decline of the continent's most endangered sites to their former glory but take the long road to educating local communities to manage them, exclusively. Then we walk away, leaving behind stewards who once lived in poverty with a modern site that can make $100 million in visitor revenue a year
It's poetic justice of sorts that the way forward passes through history. From the origins of the kora in Mali where we translated words into sound with string instruments (if you love jazz or rock, you will understand that Coltrane and Hendrix really are "talking" to you) to the ancient cliff churches of Ethiopia, the stories of pre-colonial Africa invite a world of imagination almost impossible to believe.
Join us for the first ever UNESCO Africa Expedition. You'll see (and hear).
We take these abandoned cultural and archaeological sites, preserve and revive them with passion and fund them with very small, high-end tourism projects until they are self-sufficient, visitor-driven destinations.
Then we swarm locals with what they need to manage and operate the sites as well as competitive SME clusters around them (think art gallery, boutique hotel, coffee lounge). These luxury clusters almost always exist next to UNESCO sites but they are always owned by foreigners. We believe anything an expat can do, a local can do better. Our story is to make that happen. And then, we slip away.