Friends indeed: Travel & tourism industry-linked charitable causes worthy of your consideration

Here are travel & tour­ism industry-related fun­draisers and char­it­able causes worth con­sid­er­ing by vir­tue of the fact that “Good Tour­ism” Friends & Part­ners are involved. (This page will be updated when the latest causes brought to “GT’s” atten­tion are added to the top. Older fun­draisers or cam­paigns may no longer be open or in oper­a­tion. Please do your own due dili­gence before offer­ing any­thing to any­one.)

Holidays for the visually impaired: Seable runs crowdfunding campaign

Novem­ber 2022: “Seable is the only multi-award win­ning tour oper­at­or in the United King­dom to cre­ate assisted, act­ive, and tailored hol­i­days for the visu­ally impaired. We strive to cre­ate access­ible hol­i­days that improve inde­pend­ence, inclu­sion, and well­being, offer­ing indi­vidu­al oppor­tun­it­ies to increase con­fid­ence, learn new skills, and make lifelong friends.” 

Con­tin­ue read­ing this “GT” ‘spon­sor mes­sage’, which was offered free-of-charge to assist Seable in their crowd­fund­ing cam­paign that ends dur­ing Decem­ber 2022.

The word on the STREETS …

Octo­ber 2021: “In 2021, the world con­tin­ues to face the dire chal­lenges of the coronavir­us pan­dem­ic,” writes Neal F Ber­mas, founder of the Hoi An-based hos­pit­al­ity train­ing social enter­prise STREETS Inter­na­tion­al. “Dur­ing this peri­od STREETS has been forced to tem­por­ar­ily sus­pend oper­a­tion. Rising to the chal­lenge, the small remain­ing STREETS team has cre­ated an emer­gency fund to sup­port STREETS gradu­ates, and oth­ers from sim­il­ar hos­pit­al­ity and culin­ary train­ing pro­grams …” The STREETS Emer­gency Fund has provided emer­gency sup­port for “nearly 500 recip­i­ents” in Viet­nam. Sup­port­ers can also pur­chase cook­books and mer­chand­ise from STREETS’ shop.

Living Irrawaddy Dolphin Project update

June 2021: The Liv­ing Irrawaddy Dol­phin Pro­ject in Myan­mar is doing what it can, without tour­ism, to pro­tect the crit­ic­ally-endangered dol­phins and to help loc­al people in the Aye­yar­wady Dol­phin Pro­tec­ted Area. Please con­sider mak­ing a dona­tion via the Pro­ject web­site. A dona­tion of USD 50 can buy one pig­let for a fam­ily, USD 20 one car­bon-redu­cing cook­stove, or USD 15 for gen­er­al sup­port to loc­al fam­il­ies for lost tour­ism income. For more inform­a­tion, read Pro­ject co-founder Paul Eshoo’s “GT” Insight from Janu­ary 2020 which he updated in June 2021.

Elephant ER update

Novem­ber 2020: Hol­lis Burb­ank-Ham­marlund of “GT” Insight Part­ner Work for Wild Life Inter­na­tion­al reports that the Ele­phant Health­care Emer­gency Life­line Fund has expan­ded its reach and ser­vices. Launched in April 2020 to help keep ele­phant vets on the job in Thai­l­and, the Fund is now also help­ing ele­phant camps in India, Laos, and Nepal. And, in addi­tion to sup­port­ing ele­phant health­care in these places, the Fund is pay­ing mahout wages and secur­ing sup­plies of ele­phant food. 

Tourism In Need. Indeed.

Octo­ber 2020: As we learned about in an inspir­ing “GT” Insight writ­ten by the co-founders of Tour­ism In Need, pur­pose-driv­en tour­ism busi­nesses are fight­ing to sur­vive as the COV­ID-related crisis bites in South­east Asia. “GT” Friends Robert Pow­ell and Ameer Vir­ani have cur­ated a list of dona­tion-worthy organ­isa­tions, includ­ing a couple already lis­ted on this page. Like this page, Tour­ism In Need links dir­ectly to the fun­draisers; there are no com­mis­sions or refer­ral fees involved. 

Hotels joining hands near Angkor

August 2020: Three hotels have joined with NGO part­ners to feed people in and around the tour­ism town of Siem Reap, Cam­bod­ia. “The need is sadly only increas­ing,” “GT” Friend Chris­ti­an de Boer said. “In Siem Reap Province, 90% of the pop­u­la­tion have to pay back high-interest bank loans. No incomes for sev­er­al months means they are reduced to selling their prop­erty — motor­bike, car or even their homes! — to pay it back, let alone the fact that they aren’t able to eat prop­erly everyday.” 

All of the fol­low­ing causes were added to the “Friends indeed” sec­tion of the weekly “Good news in tour­ism” posts pri­or to August 2020 and dur­ing the COVID-19 coronavir­us crisis and accom­pa­ny­ing eco­nom­ic disaster:

Reach out to help a Southeast Asian tour guide

Khiri Reach, the char­it­able arm of “GT” Part­ner Khiri Travel, has set up a fund to sup­port freel­ance tour guides. Khiri Reach boss Nia Klatte said: “We want to sup­port a group of people who are among the very hard­est hit by the cur­rent crisis: our freel­ance guides. Unfor­tu­nately, in South­east Asia, the gov­ern­ment safety nets are extremely min­im­al if they exist at all for freel­an­cers. And while some domest­ic tour­ism is com­ing back, it will take months or years for tour­ism activ­it­ies to return to ‘nor­mal’.”

Fill empty stomachs in Uganda

“GT” Insight Part­ner Second Look World­wide is endors­ing a fun­draiser organ­ised by “GT” Friend James Nadi­ope, who said: “Since Uganda went into quar­ant­ine with total lock­down fol­lowed by curfew, many fam­il­ies where we work go empty stom­ach with no food to eat. I would like to appeal to all well-wish­ers for fin­an­cial dona­tions to help these vul­ner­able fam­il­ies.”

There’s an elephant in the room (emergency room)

Many Asi­an ele­phants and their mahouts in Thai­l­and and else­where are in deep trouble. That’s why Hol­lis Burb­ank-Ham­marlund, founder & dir­ect­or of “GT” Insight Part­ner Work for Wild Life Inter­na­tion­al, would ask that you con­trib­ute to the Ele­phant Health­care Emer­gency Life­line Fund, which helps keep veter­in­ari­ans on the job deliv­er­ing emer­gency veter­in­ary care to ele­phants that need it most … when they need it most.

Better a ranger in a forest than a pangolin in a pot

Forest patrols by Wild­life Alli­ance rangers in Botum Sakor Nation­al Park in south­w­est Cam­bod­ia may have to be sus­pen­ded. The rangers’ equip­ment, food and wages are provided in entirety by the Golden Tri­angle Asi­an Ele­phant Found­a­tion (GTAEF) and Car­damom Ten­ted Camp both of which depend on tour­ism. And there is no tour­ism. An emer­gency fun­drais­ing page is live. [“GT” Friends Willem Niemeijer and John Roberts are asso­ci­ated with the fun­draiser via Car­damom and GTAEF respectively.

Hospitality for hospital staff

Not a fun­draiser as such, but a great idea for accom­mod­a­tion pro­viders: “GT” Friend Rachel Sher­wood is organ­ising well-deserved hol­i­days for health­care work­ers at the front lines of the COVID-19 fight. Oper­a­tion Recu­per­a­tion is col­lect­ing pledges from accom­mod­a­tion pro­viders and second home own­ers from all over the world.