Sabyinyo foothills · Rwanda
Rooted in
this community.
Every stay at Sambora Kinigi is an investment in the people, culture and landscape of the valley we call home.
A lodge is only as strong
as the community around it.
In 2025, Sambora Kinigi employed 37 people from the Kinigi valley and surrounding communities — providing training, professional development and long-term careers in a region where tourism is transforming lives. These are the numbers behind that commitment.
Full & part time
Our People
Built from the valley up.
Over 75% of the Sambora team comes from the communities surrounding Volcanoes National Park. We believe in investing in the exceptional talent already here, pairing local team members with seasoned hospitality professionals through a hands-on programme of mentorship, skills sharing and professional development.
In 2025, 32 of our 37 team members reported positive engagement. It’s a measure we track carefully—not simply as a number, but as an important reflection of whether Sambora is a place where people feel valued, supported and able to grow.
Professional Development
We invest in our team
to excel for our guests.
First Aid & Fire Safety
Comprehensive first aid and fire training delivered to all operational staff — ensuring every guest experience is safe, and every team member is prepared.
HACCP Food Safety
Full HACCP certification across the kitchen and F&B team — the international food safety standard, applied to everything that leaves our kitchen.
Wine & Spirit Education
A formal Wine & Spirit Education Trust qualification for our front-of-house team, raising the standard of every table experience at Sambora.
Patience Dushimimana
Full school tuition and professional development programme, sponsored by Sambora as part of our commitment to long-term career growth for our team.
Daniella Isimbi
Representing Sambora at the region’s leading HR forum — bringing current thinking in people management back to our operations in Kinigi.
Local Hire Programme
Eight interns. Eight careers begun.
Our internship programme is designed with one goal: a path to permanent employment with us or supported by us. In 2025, every intern who completed their placement was offered a full-time role. We continue to operate a rolling internship programme for members of the local community.
Front of House
David
Front of House
Bonheur
Culinary
Claudine
Culinary
Daniel
Housekeeping
Emerance
Culinary
Eysee
Culinary
Yves
Culinary
Onesmus
Culture & Heritage
The Intore tradition,
kept alive.
Rwanda’s Intore dancers are one of the great living cultural traditions of East Africa — warriors turned performers, their movements a record of history and pride. Sambora Kinigi employs eight dancers year-round, ensuring this art form remains a living part of every guest’s experience.
For our guests, it is a performance unlike anything they have seen. For our dancers, it is a livelihood and a statement of cultural identity.
“Our dances are not just entertainment. They are memory — every movement carries the history of who we are and gives each guest a memory of Rwanda, to treasure.”
Intore Dancer · Kinigi Valley
200
Two hundred trees.
Native. Permanent. Ours.
In 2025 we planted 200 native trees across the Kinigi valley — a small but deliberate act in a region where reforestation directly supports the mountain gorilla habitat. Every tree is tracked, tended and permanent.
Native species only
We plant only species indigenous to the Volcanoes region — no exotics, no monocultures. Trees that the forest recognises.
Gorilla habitat corridor
Planted to support extending the forest buffer around Volcanoes National Park.
Community nursery
Seedlings grown in a community-run nursery, creating employment and connection to the project within the valley.
"Tourism is only a force for good when the people closest to the land are the ones who benefit from it most."
Sambora · Community Commitment · 2025
Come and see
for yourself.
A stay at Sambora is a direct contribution to everything on this page.