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Leonard Ncube, Victoria Falls Reporter
EVERY tourism and safari operating company has a tour guide whose job is to welcome clients and help them familiarise with the surroundings.
These could be males or females of all ages. Tour guides are the most interesting characters loved by tourists because of their vast knowledge about the natural and human environment, wildlife, nature and destination.
To be a tour guide one undergoes rigorous training in law, firearms, general paper, habits and habitats to obtain a learner professional hunter’s licence (LPH).
There are a number of private training institutions mostly run by individuals that offer LPH and examinations are administered by the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (Zimparks).
Mr Leonard Ngwenya, a professional tour guide, is credited for training hundreds of tour guides and professional hunters in Victoria Falls. He is the director of Cub View Tours, a company he established in 2015 with four partners and incorporated his wife, Thabiso.
Mr Ngwenya started training prospective tour guides in 1999 after obtaining a licence from Zimparks which authorised him to teach LPH.
He uses Chamabondo Primary School as the venue to conduct lessons after entering into a partnership with the school.
Chamabondo Primary School helped Mr Ngwenya to register with the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development.
“As a new company, I realised that we were not getting much and decided to concentrate on training learner professional guides. We started classes at Chamabondo Primary School after we engaged the headmaster, Mr Phathugwalo Masuku in 2012,” said Mr Ngwenya.
“I have been doing LPH with the community since 1999. This is after I did my full licence theory and got a licence in 1998 before Zimparks gave me the green light to teach LPH in Victoria Falls.”
Mr Ngwenya has trained more than 200 tour guides. He said he also works with the Department of Social Welfare which seconds vulnerable young people who meet the required grade for training.
The LPH course targets any school leavers who can read and write regardless of age.
“It takes about nine months to complete the course although in some instances some finish after seven months. Tour guides are the face of the tourism industry,” Mr Ngwenya said.
“Successful students are awarded licences. Some have gotten jobs in the tourism industry while others have formed their own companies and they are doing well. The course allows the licence holder to receive visitors into the tourism city.”
Mr Ngwenya said given that tour guides represent and present Zimbabwe to visitors, it is important for them to have a better understanding of the environment and the country’s destinations.
“Our young people should take this course as an opportunity for them to get education through non formal means and acquire a profession. We accept those that would have gone up to O-level as long as they are able to read and write,” he said.
Mr Ngwenya also hosts radio programmes where he educates people on issues to do with wildlife conservation and human-wildlife conflict.
Victoria Falls City, the country’s tourism capital, could be the only city and urban area that has no tertiary training institution in the country resulting in tour operators and hoteliers importing labour from other parts of the country.
Mr Ngwenya’s initiative comes in handy to fill the gap in terms of the training of tour guides. Mosi-oa-Tunya High School has also started running similar non formal education programmes focusing on courses that are relevant to the tourism industry.
The school head Mr Roland Sibanda recently told Primary and Secondary Education Minister Dr
Eveline Ndlovu that the school is offering a number of courses under the Higher Education
Examinations Council (HEXCO). — -@ncubeleon
Online Reporter