South Africa luxury vacation, Garden Route & safari

Planet

On this trip, you will see that Grootbos is about much more than just five star accommodation and eco adventures; it’s about making a real and effective contribution to the unique natural environment of the Walker Bay region and its people.
From the beginning, it has been committed to the conservation of the region’s biodiversity as well as the upliftment of the local community.
The non-profit Grootbos Foundation was established during 2003 to run the Grootbos environmental and social development programmes and has as its mission:
The conservation of the biodiversity of Grootbos and its surrounds & the development of sustainable nature-based livelihoods through ecotourism, research, management and education.
Funds generated by the Grootbos ecotourism business, together with donations received from guests and other donors are invested through the foundation into implementing key conservation and development projects. In this way all guests are directly supporting biodiversity conservation and social upliftment in the Walker Bay region.
The key projects developed by the foundation to achieve its goals are: Green Futures, Growing the Future, the Youth Development Programme and Future Trees.

People

The Grootbos Foundation supports the Youth Development Programme, which is an inspiring project that uses sport as a vehicle to promote education, health, social integration and participation amongst the culturally diverse communities of the Gansbaai area, especially the underprivileged youth.
Identifying the need for a communal sport facility and seeing the opportunity for community development, the Grootbos Foundation played a key role in the establishment of the Gansbaai Communal Sports Centre, which includes a full-size artificial football pitch, two additional grass pitches, and several other world-class sporting facilities including a multi-purpose clubhouse.
The Gansbaai Communal Sports Centre is intentionally situated right in the middle of the racially diverse communities of Gansbaai, serving as the perfect catalyst for social integration in a traditionally segregated area. A wide variety of sports including football, rugby, hockey, netball and athletics are offered to encourage a wide spectrum of participation.
Our various accredited youth and adult education programmes use sport to address environmental awareness, HIV/AIDS, health, computer literacy, life skills training, career development and entrepreneurial development.
Across the different sports and educational programmes, the project reaches about 600 children and adults from different racial groups in Gansbaai, Stanford and Hermanus every week.