impact
Community
Samara is committed to positively impacting our local sphere of influence, being the rural communities of the Great Karoo between Graaff-Reinet and Pearston.
Samara is located in the Eastern Cape province, which routinely ranks as one of the poorest in South Africa.
Unemployment in the province stood above 40% in 2024, compared to 32% nationally, with 36% of households wholly dependent on social grants for survival. The Great Karoo also forms part of a rural Presidential Poverty Node, the “spatial manifestation of the second economy”, where only 20% of residents have completed formal schooling.
The philosophy guiding Samara’s responsible business model is to positively impact our local sphere of influence, being the towns of Graaff-Reinet and Pearston and their surrounds.
Our key objectives are to provide opportunities for job creation, to catalyse rural upliftment and to promote economic diversification from conventional farming to ecotourism, land restoration and regenerative agriculture. Already, the land-use change from conventional farming to conservation and ecotourism pioneered by Samara in the region has tripled the number of jobs available on the farms concerned. These tourism jobs command higher salaries and more extensive benefits than agriculture jobs. They also encourage more women to enter the workforce.
Samara’s closest community is the body of staff that makes up the Samara family, currently numbering some 100 people. Staff training is ongoing, encompassing technical skills like baking and wine-pairing, technological upskilling on software and accounting systems and knowledge development on multiple aspects of guiding and the natural environment.
Food and services are procured locally, with an emphasis on supporting small, family-run and cooperative businesses. This includes Boundless, a woodwork, needlework and crafts NGO in Graaff-Reinet which supports adults with physical or psychological disabilities, and McNaughton’s Bookshop, run by the family of the same name who have lived and farmed in the region for generations, which also has a tour guiding arm called Karoo Connections.
As well as trading locally, Samara conducts philanthropic work with several local NGOs. Samara has supported Vuyani Safe Haven, a registered Child and Youth Care Centre in Graaff-Reinet which provides safety and care for children whose families cannot or do not care adequately for them, since 2010. Samara organises an annual Christmas party at one of the lodges, providing gifts, treats and a game drive to the children.
In 2018, Samara launched the Heritage Day Cup, an initiative to provide the youth of Graaff-Reinet with a platform to envisage a future for themselves in the context of challenges facing the community, from unemployment and drug-taking to teenage pregnancy and gender-based violence. The concept is simple – unite and give hope through sport. Today the tournament covers football and netball across a variety of age groups, reaching 800 local youth, with plans to expand further in years to come.
People matter
