Empowering women to become safari driver guides

by Rupi Mangat

In Tanzania, Maggie Duncan Simbeye is a trailblazer, opening doors for other women to dare big. As one of the first Indigenous woman safari drivers and guides and owner of her own safari company – Maggie’s Tour Company, her story is nothing short of inspiring. Growing up in a rural on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s tallest mountain, her prospects like those of so many other young women, were limited to getting married and having children.

She did get married which turned sour. Left alone to fend for herself and her children, here’s her story.

Tourism offered a new path

Born in 1975, Maggie grew up in a rural village in Tanzania near Moshi on the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro in a very controlling patriarchal community. It was a tough life with abusive lifestyles from schools to most homes.

This was not the life Maggie wanted. Focused on being independent and not following in the footsteps of her mother and the local rural women, she ventured into tourism “to empower myself and other women who are slaves in a patriarchal society like I was,” she says.

Most rural women stay home to clean dishes, cook for the men and the family, wash, take care of the cows, fetch water from the river, and collect firewood rain or shine.

Venturing into the safari business

After high school, encouraged by her mother and grandmother, Maggie enrolled at the Vocational Educational and Training School (VETA) to study catering. It was tough because there was little money for herself and her four siblings.

After graduating, Maggie was employed by the government (VETA HIMO) to teach at the college after which she secured a job at the prestigious Ngurdoto Hotel where she served dignitaries like Kofi Annan (the seventh secretary-general of the United Nations from 1997 to 2006 and co-recipient of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize) and the former President Kikwete (the third president of Tanzania).

It was here that Maggie started dreaming of owning her own safari company. She enrolled herself at a tour guiding college in Arusha (Professional Tour Guiding School, PROTS) despite not having enough money for the fee. “The administrators allowed me to pay half and finish payments after I got a job because I had enrolled my siblings there and so they trusted me.”

The challenge was to raise the required funds with a job that allowed her to attend college during the week and work weekends. And a job she did find – as the first female bouncer at Colobus Club, a nightclub in Arusha whose owner she had met at Ngurdoto Hotel.

Her new boss employed her on the spot.

Working nights on the weekend, Maggie made friends with the local prostitutes frequenting the nightclub. “I was curious about them and the challenges they faced and why they made the decisions they made.”

This experience led Maggie to found Dare Women’s Foundation in 2005, which is partly funded by her safari company. A client, Morgan Geiger from Boulder CU, USA, paid for DARE to be registered. Dare Women’s Foundation is about empowering Tanzanian women and girls through poverty alleviation, social justice, economic empowerment, and gender equality, focusing on rural areas.

Life as a single woman

Maggie is one of the few local Tanzanian women to divorce officially after her marriage went wrong. She raises her two kids single-handedly: Morgan, her 15-year-old daughter and Zion, her 13-year-old son.

The divorce happened during Covid and even though her ex-husband had a government job, he does not support the kids. To add to her woes, her business was at a standstill as the tourists had stopped coming.

It was after the divorce that Maggie registered her safari company in 2021. Today she is respected in the industry and by the community.

“They see the positive changes and impact of a woman owning her own company,” she says.

Starting her safari company was not easy but again, friends Connie and Jeff Wersal Lavelle helped.

“It was hard without funding because of the bills like my children’s education, health, water, rent and so on. It is why women-owned companies grow very slowly,” she says.

Her business has grown by word of mouth with clients referring her to others. She has even been invited by them to the USA as a panellist at the Conference on World Affairs several times,

“I feel wonderful because I am empowering women to become safari driver guides. So far, there are 20,” states the safari woman.

”I tell women to learn about their rights and join women’s groups. To earn their own income so that they are not afraid to empower themselves and raise their children. To love themselves. And to remember that their body is theirs. Not for men.”

Learn more about Maggie’s Tours on JourneyWoman’s Women’s Travel Directory.

More Stories From Africa to Inspire You