Imvelo Community Health PVO

68 Townsend road

Suburbs, Bulawayo

Zimbabwe

Registered Private Voluntary Organisation 18/24 (24 July 2024)

 

​Bourne out of Imvelo Safari Lodges

Imvelo Safari Lodges (Imvelo) is a Zimbabwean tourism company focused on photographic safari experiences in and around Hwange National Park. 

 

Imvelo operates six lodges across different land tenures within the greater Hwange landscape:

• Three lodges are located inside Hwange National Park.

• One lodge operates on Forestry Commission land adjacent to the Park

• Two lodges/camps are situated on Tsholotsho communal lands, only a few metres from the Park boundary.

 

Imvelo exemplifies a tourism model that considers the whole landscape:

• It is not solely about uplifting communities…it is about uplifting communities so they are inspired and empowered to champion community-based conservation.

• It is not solely about conserving wildlife…it is about conserving and protecting wildlife to be able to generate benefits for the local communities.

All that, with tourism at the helm. Tourism facilitates and finances community-based conservation, while also hugely benefiting from it and from the valuable wildlife experiences this type of conservation provides.

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Over the last 15 + years, Imvelo has worked in partnership with the local communities to develop and promote community-based conservation facilitated by its tourism model.

 

The Water4Wildlife Trust

As conservation and community initiatives expanded, Imvelo also created an independent charitable structure to help deliver community development and wildlife protection work in a transparent and accountable way, alongside its tourism operations. This was created in 2013 and was called the Water4Wildlife Trust.

 

In April 2026, the Trust is transitioning to a Private Voluntary Organisation called the Imvelo Community Health PVO, initially set up in July 2024 (registration 18/24, Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare), in compliance with the Private Voluntary Organisation Act passed in 2025.

 

Imvelo Community Health PVO

Imvelo Community Health oversees and manages all of Imvelo’s community and conservation projects. Its purpose is to simultaneously facilitate community development and wildlife preservation by promoting community-based conservation in an area that is defined by human-wildlife conflicts, intense droughts and limited socio-economic opportunities for local people. Projects are annual or opportunistic, depending on funding available. The Community Rhino Conservation Initiative (CRCI) is one of the PVO's projects and works in parallel with a number of other community development initiatives. Other projects include providing free dental and eye care, carrying out free cataract surgeries, building and renovating school infrastructure (classrooms, accommodation blocks, teacher cottages), drilling, equipping and repairing boreholes, providing school bursaries and meals, setting up sewing cooperatives, running a sports and recreation centre, building the Ngamo Clinic, supporting other clinics, setting up irrigated food gardens, providing tonnes of food aid etc. More about these projects  here  

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