The Alternative Winelands Tour, facilitated by Dreamcatcher, offers a heart-warming and educational alternative to the mainstream Cape Winelands experience. The tour features insights into the lives of labourers who worked the land during establishment of the Western Cape’s wine estates enabling visitors to learn about the challenges of hostel and farm life and how the community has developed to present day. The tour visits wine estates that have demonstrated a commitment to employees (such as providing access to land and technical assistance to start their own wine label) and features a unique opportunity to prepare (and sample!) traditional food during a “cook-up with the Kamammas” – women from the local area.

Visitors on the Alternative Winelands Tour are encouraged to leave the community environment as they would like to find it; this is actively communicated through Dreamcatcher’s literature and a pre-tour briefing offered by local tourist guides. Local entrepreneurs are encouraged to reduce their own environmental impacts as well as to educate their wider communities on environmental awareness and waste management. Installation of the first solar geysers at the Kamamma Homestays and Cook-up venues has commenced and will continue until all entrepreneurs have replaced electrical geysers with solar hot water systems. Turning waste into resources through water-saving, recycling and replacing alien plants with indigenous vegetation is on Dreamcatcher’s training agenda for 2010.

“We were so pleased with the process. Not only did we find the assessor of FTTSA to be very professional, she clearly understood the difference between staged community-based experiences and what we are doing. We found the assessment a very good test for what we set ourselves out to be and an inspiration to live up to. For us to ‘walk the talk’, is part of our core mission at Dreamcatcher” - Margie Carolus, Administrator of Dreamcatcher.