Serengeti Balloon Safaris Driving Change – The Story of Happyness Mwami, our First Female Driver Guide

Serengeti Balloon Safaris Driving Change – 

The Story of Happyness Mwami, our First Female Driver Guide

In 2025 Serengeti Balloon Safaris launched a pioneering training programme – The Balloon Trailblazers Guide Apprenticeship Programme. The ambition of this programme was to inspire and train the next generation of safari industry professionals.

In its first year of 22 applicants who were successful in gaining a place on the 3 week long intensive training programme, 12 were then given further advance training into full time employment by Serengeti Balloon Safaris. The remaining 10 people were supported into employment elsewhere. Happyness Mwami was one of these 12 people and was proud to be the only female in the group. 

In an industry where safari guiding remains heavily male-dominated, being the only woman could easily have been intimidating. For Happyness, it had the opposite effect.

“It gave me more confidence that I was equipped with the required skills to compete with men in a male-dominated sector.”

That confidence did not mean the journey was easy. She remembers night driving, dealing with a flat tyre and, perhaps most significantly, being doubted.

But throughout the programme, she was given opportunities to demonstrate her ability. And she did. After an intensive year long training programme Happyness is now proud to become Serengeti Balloon Safari's first fully qualified female driver guide. 

Trailblazers helped Happyness strengthen practical skills that she now uses in her work, including defensive driving, mechanical knowledge, customer care and guest experience. But when she reflects on what changed most, she does not begin with technical skills. She talks about herself. She emerged from the programme more confident and stronger. She considers her personal growth—and fulfilling her ambition of becoming one of Tanzania’s relatively few female safari guides—among her proudest achievements.

Training can teach someone how to change a tyre, navigate difficult terrain or safely operate a vehicle. Opportunity can do something different: it can allow someone to discover just how capable they already are.

John Corse, MD of Serengeti Balloon Safaris commented; 

“We are incredibly proud of what Happyness has achieved and even prouder to count her as part of our team. Creating meaningful opportunities for Tanzanians is part of our ambition to create a more sustainable tourism industry. Being a responsible driver guide is part of the wider conservation story which we take incredibly seriously and is reflected in everyday decisions our drivers take in the field—from avoiding unnecessary off-road driving and littering to respecting appropriate driving speeds. A responsible guide does not simply show a guest the Serengeti. A responsible guide helps protect it.”

Happyness does not see becoming SBS’s first female driver guide as the end of her journey. Over the next five years, she wants to become “the best of the best” as a guide.

One day, she dreams of owning her own safari company—one that deliberately creates opportunities for women because she understands how limited those opportunities can sometimes be. Her message to young women is simple:

“Go for it, because you can do it. The sky is the limit.” The spirit of a Trailblazer 

For her full story see HERE