A placement that made me feel like I belonged

By Henok Alemneh, 1st year MDP student

As part of the World Indigenous Tourism Alliance (WINTA) broader advocacy strategy to promote research and development projects that emphasize the rights of Indigenous peoples in tourism, one of my roles involved planning and organizing a seminar on ‘Tourism Industry Engagement with Indigenous Peoples as Rights-Holders’. 

The seminar aimed at raising the profile of WINTA and its Indigenous Tourism Engagement Framework (ITEF) to a diverse audience that was comprised of people from academia, tourism bodies, NGOs and government. The project was realised through collaboration among WINTA, Victoria University of Wellington and Kapiti Island Nature Tours. Victoria University collaborated by hosting me as a visiting master’s scholar and by integrating our seminar into the University’s School of Management Seminar Series. Dr. Christian Schott, a Senior Lecturer at the University, contributed by coordinating these and serving as a chair for the seminar. Mr. John Barrett, who is the Managing Director and Founder of Kapiti Island Nature Tours, collaborated by presenting on the seminar and sharing practical information on an earlier WINTA facilitated project that involved his community.   

Part of the organizing team:
L-R: Dr. Christian Schott, Henok & Johnny Edmonds

My work on the project started by putting together a project outline following initial meeting we had with the organizing team and continued through regular consultation with my supervisor Johnny Edmonds, Director, WINTA. Being given the responsibility to coordinate the seminar taught me how to perform such tasks independently and at the same time make effective use of the team environment and support system available. The knowledge and experience I obtained from my studies and lessons I learned from our previous Kapiti Island project was very helpful in planning and organizing the seminar.

The planning activities for the seminar involved designing the presentations in a way that respects and integrates Maori/Indigenous protocols, methodologies and literature. The presentations were also designed to encourage active engagement of seminar participants through sharing of practical information, a handout provided with key information, use of relevant pictures and diagrams, posters, and through a discussion and Q&A session. Arranging venue & date, writing the seminar abstract, project report & evaluation, organizing promotion, invitation & webinar delivery options, preparing forms, slides, notes & other documents, and presenting on the seminar are also among the activities that provided me with tremendous learning, networking and professional development opportunities. Through these experiences, I was able to improve my research and project management skills and learned how things happen in the real world of development work.

Henok presenting on WINTA's ITEF

One of the major tasks during the planning phase of the project was building on WINTA’s concept of ITEF, a roadmap being developed to enhance respectful engagements between Indigenous communities and all other key players in Indigenous tourism based on the Larrakia principles of respect, consultation, empowerment, partnership, community benefit and protection. A diagram was designed to illustrate the key foundational components of the engagement framework and a paper describing the concepts was written with the information being made available for potential use and improvements.   This task required a review of literature and identifying issues and gaps as it relates to rights-based Indigenous tourism. I also did a review of WINTA’s documents that are of relevance to the particular focus of the seminar. These tasks taught me different set of skills for engagement in research activities.

Seminar participants

Overall, the projects I have been engaged in are vital in providing roadmaps and strengthening the foundational work which will be built on through subsequent projects in various parts of the world through WINTA’s team and global network. One of the initial steps we have taken for the purpose of a wider promotion and feedback on WINTA’s rights-based approach to tourism was to create a webinar video of the seminar presentation. This is expected to be shared through WINTA’s global network. I obtained great experiences from the planning and implementation of this seminar project. Moreover, the core values of the organization and the responsibilities I was entrusted with made me feel I belonged. I am very grateful for the incredible support of WINTA and its director, University of Winnipeg, Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Scholarship, Victoria University of Wellington and all individuals and organizations that I haven’t mentioned by name.