Baobab Ridge has put tremendous effort into empowering its team of staff, and especially its women. All but six of the lodge's 21 staff are women, and all except two come from the local communities that border the Klaserie Private Nature Reserve.

"Women really are the backbone of the tourism industry," says the lodge's co-founder and manager, Nini Gouveris. "And that is especially true of the safari sector, although the majority of the women involved are hardly seen, working in kitchens and behind the scenes in housekeeping, for example," she adds. 

That's certainly not the case at Baobab Ridge. The ladies here are not the ghostly figures you sometimes see slipping stealthily between rooms with piles of linen or hidden behind piles of cooking pots in a busy scullery - they are very much part of the lodge's DNA and love the chance to interact with guests. It's their personalities that make the lodge so special, and their laughter that's truly infectious!

"Most of our ladies had not worked in this industry before," says Nini. "The majority started out in housekeeping and moved up from there as they showed interest in different areas of the lodge, giving them the training and skills they need to create meaningful careers in the hospitality industry," she adds.

Much of the training is given by an extraordinary role-model for the ladies of Baobab Ridge - relief manager Lettie Letsile, who started out as a scullery worker for Nini's father, Wolfgang Burre, when he opened the first photographic safari camp in the Okavango Delta in Lettie's home country of Botswana. 

"Lettie worked her way up from the scullery to a head chef and then catering manager at Xakanaxa Camp," says Nini. "She then took over as manager of the camp - one of the first Motswana women in Botswana to be given a management position at a luxury safari lodge," she adds. It's Lettie, then, who demonstrates what can be achieved, and she comes to Baobab Ridge regularly to act as a relief manager and carry out training.

"I felt it was important for the ladies to learn from someone who had walked in their shoes and understands the challenges of being a woman in this industry but overcame them," says Nini. Lettie has indeed inspired the team, and will continue in her role as soon as international borders are open again and she can travel from Botswana.

One of the most important aspects of empowering the team of ladies at Baobab Ridge has been seeing them develop into role models for their communities and their own families. "This is the real domino effect of tourism and demonstrates how giving individual people opportunities to learn and further themselves in this industry benefits entire communities of people," says Nini. "We have to remember that the majority of the staff who look after us are supporting up to 10 people in their families back home in their communities. That's an enormous contribution these women are making."