Who is Kwando?
We’re all about the Wild!
If you hadn’t already noticed, we put your wildlife experience at the heart of everything we do – from flexible schedules that support outstanding sightings, to our guide and tracker teams that maximise your chances of finding game, to camps that are designed to bring you closer to nature in terms of sights, sounds, and touching the ground.
But behind the scenes, we’re even more than that…
Proudly Botswana
We’re a proudly Botswana company, 100% citizen-owned and managed by people who call Botswana home. Our philosophy is to do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do, and we believe that ultimately values drive value.
Local champion
We are the first safari company to have our camps staffed entirely by Batswana, we pioneered family-style dining to encourage cross-cultural exchange, set the industry standard for staff accommodation, employed Botswana’s first female guide, tracker, pilot, and CEO.
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Welcome to Our Home!
Kwando means “at our home” and our down-to-earth Botswana hospitality is reflected in our family-style dining and unpretentious, relaxed atmosphere. This easygoing environment enables authentic exchanges with the Kwando family and fellow guests as we learn about each other.
...Together these pillars create the Kwando Wildlife Experience – a safari that’s wild and remote yet deeply rooted in impact and authenticity.
Being the Genuine Difference
Kwando is proudly owned and hosted by Batswana citizens so we’re serious about making a positive difference that not only empowers, but also builds capacity for Botswana’s future generations. We developed the Kwando Compass to guide our impact strategy and as a visual representation of our belief that our impact philosophy is integrated into everything we do and that following the compass in any direction will lead us back to the same place – a place of balance between our staff, our guests, our communities and our environment.
Our People are our magnetic north – guiding our focus and setting our direction. Our commitment to our Communities and Conservation is a dynamic balancing act—two aspirations that can at times pull in different directions yet together help define a more thoughtful and responsible path forward. And at the heart of it all, our Guests offer a vital counterbalance, embodying our promise to share the best of Botswana through genuine, heartfelt hospitality.
Our Local Impact Partners
Powered by guest contributions and driven by our own passion and commitment, Kwando Impact champions a number of home-grown community and conservation projects led by the following keystone partners:
The Okavango Research Institute and the Kwando Research Scholars
Part of the University of Botswana, the Okavango Research Institute (ORI) is a highly respected academic research institute.
Based in Maun, it focuses on natural resource management, environmental management, and environmental monitoring in the Okavango and Kalahari. Multidisciplinary MPhil and PhD programmes apply natural and social science approaches to studying these unique environments. Kwando has partnered with ORI to develop the next generation of Batswana scientists and conservationists by building local research capacity, highlighting ORI’s scientific work, and raising the profile of ORI’s researchers. Our joint outreach efforts include lively research discussion panels known as “Conservation on Tap”. Through the Kwando Impact Scholarship, we also support young scientists passionate about conservation, furthering their academic qualifications through research.
Ithute Go Tshameka le Kwando | Learn to Play with Kwando
In Botswana, 76% of children lack access to early childhood education and 81% of households are women led households, half of which are grappling with poverty.
Learn to Play with Kwando seeks to reverse this by making early childhood education accessible for remote communities on a sustainable basis. Ithute Go Tshameka le Kwando, as it is called in Setswana, is a social enterprise playgroup model that transforms childhoods, uplifts women’s economic opportunities, and builds vibrant villages. Local mothers, or Maatla Mamas, are trained and provided with the necessary ongoing support and materials to lead early childhood education lessons in local community playgroups.
...Mummy’s Angels Botswana
Mummy’s Angels delivers baby bags filled with essential items to vulnerable new mothers and their newborns. Registered as a trust in Botswana, this initiative is highly appreciated by the local clinics and hospitals in Maun for ensuring that essential items are provided to the women who need them most, as identified by the healthcare professionals on duty.
Make an Impact!
By choosing Kwando for your safari, you are generously helping a local company to make grassroots impact, for which we are incredibly grateful.
If you would like to be even more involved, we are proud members of Pack for a Purpose. You can help us deliver ‘Baby showers in a Bag’ to vulnerable mothers and their newborns near Maun and the Okavango Delta. If your safari bag has space, Mummy’s Angels is looking for the items in the link below. You can drop these off with us during your holiday. For every item donated, Kwando Safaris matches the donation with a similar item.
Kwando Impact also accepts donations to expand our efforts.
- $50 for a Mummy’s Angels “Babyshower in a Bag”
- $100 supports local research with the Okavango Research Institute
- $150 sponsors a child for one year at Learn to Play
100% of your donation goes directly to Kwando Impact, a registered non-profit. To support a Kwando Impact project, kindly email impact@kwando.co.bw
We are proud members of Pack for a Purpose.
You can help us deliver ‘Baby showers in a Bag’ to vulnerable mothers and their newborns near Maun and the Okavango Delta.
If your safari bag has space, Mummy’s Angels is looking for the following items. You can drop off these items with us during your holiday.
For every item donated, Kwando Safaris matches the donation with a similar item.
