Travel with Conscience

Cambodia

Green Gecko Orphanage: Visit Tania and Rem who have devoted their lives to saving street children.

Journeys Within Our Community: This fantastic team helps install wells, supports local education and offers micro-loans for new businesses.

Landmine Museum and Orphanage: This facility is more than a museum. It is also the home of an incredible family that provides education and support for dozens of at-risk, landmine-affected children rescued by the this NGO. Many children who are part of this family have suffered overwhelming hardships. The Landmine Museum was created so that it might serve as a place of healing for bodies, hearts and minds.

Vietnam

Thanh Xuan Peace Village - Hanoi
--located outside the Hanoi city-center the center provides shelter, food, health check-ups, education, supervision, and love for over 100 second and third generation children who are the victims of dioxin (or agent orange) used during the American-Vietnam War.

Saigon Children’s Charity –Saigon
Saigon Children's Charity takes simple, practical steps to ensure that needy Vietnamese children get an education. They build schools, give scholarships, provide vocational training and offer micro loans that enable the poorest families to make a living and educate their own children.

Mekong Delta Sampan Donation – A sampan (wooden boat) provides a means for making a living, feeding a family, as well as a method of transportation in the Mekong Delta. For some families supporting multiple generations the expense of a sampan is beyond their means. Donating a sampan can change the life of a family by offering means to eat and sell fish as well as providing transport to school. Make this a reality for a family. Send your donation ahead of time and then travel out to this vast and remote area by boat to visit the family for the donation ceremony while in-country.

Thailand

Elephant Nature Park - Visit the Elephant Nature Park and learn how “Lek” has dedicated her life to rescuing and caring for Thailand’s abused and suffering elephants. Her work is internationally recognized and culminated in her being awarded Time Magazine’s Hero of Asia last year. This park is a true beacon of conservation with respect to these precious animals, as well playing an active role in protecting the environment and heritage of the region.

Local Orphanage/Temple - Your guide will take you to a special Buddhist temple located on the outskirts of Chiang Mai. The temple doubles as an orphanage and school for some 400 ethnic minority orphans from the Northern Provinces most of whom have lost parents to poverty, aids, war or political persecution.

Viengping Children's Home - Viengping was a home for all orphaned children in the northern region before being streamlined in 1997 to cater to babies and children up to the age of 6 and girls between 7 and 18 years old. The home also caters to children who are HIV positive from birth and to those orphaned as a result of the deaths of AIDS-infected parents. Viengping was the first orphanage in the country to take in HIV-infected children and as a result, accepted children from everywhere in Thailand. While funded partly by the government, the children still have many needs ranging from furniture to bathroom and playground facilities, to repair of serious building maintenance problems.

Costa Rica

Sarapiqui Conservation and Learning Center – Linking Community and Conservation Through Education and Ecotourism

SCLC is a non-profit organization working to link communities and conservation through education and ecotourism in the Sarapiqui region of Costa Rica’s northern lowlands. It focuses its efforts in 4 areas: environmental education, community development, conservation and tourism.

A visit to the center offers in depth private one-on-one meetings with the center’s staff who will describe their social and environmental programs including field ecology, reforestation, and recycling projects. Delve further into the local culture and take a Spanish cooking or Latin Dance class.

You will have the opportunity to see first hand how support for local projects contributes to the health of the community.

Join the center’s efforts in these areas by:

• Help local schools provide education material, supplies – currently we are searching for funding to install a sidewalk. The lack of one currently poses a major hazard to children walking alongside the road to school. Contact us for a complete school wish list.
• Sponsor a child’s education through the scholarship program.
• Buy plants to be reforested in a biological corridor- visit a local farm in communities that neighbor a private reserves and help in planting native trees on the property. If you like, you can help plant them yourself or even better, invite a local school to join you.
• Help fund the conservation center itself to continue doing the important work they are doing to preserve Costa Rica…contact us for their specific wish list.

Please note that this is a wonderful place to bring children should you have the opportunity to travel with them. We can make special arrangements to involve them in school and reforestation efforts.

Punta Islita Model for Sustainable Tourism

Hotel Punta Islita has pioneered a Responsible Tourism program that encourages the preservation of local cultures and rational use of natural resources. A tour of this program is more of a tutorial in how tourism can truly be symbiotic with preservation of local culture and heritage and economic development of communities surrounding tourist destination. A visit to this hotel is support in itself for such an incredible project that can be used as a model for Sustainable Tourism worldwide.

The surrounding towns and villages have been infused with enthusiasm and a sense of self-determination. The optimism that accompanies this mindset has inspired community leaders to undertake successful projects.

Many of these initiatives are important "regional firsts" and include a public library, a composting station, and a recycling program

Copaza – Manuel Antonio

India

Salaam Baalak Trust - Providing shelter and education to children in need. The trust runs 24 hour shelters and channels underprivileged children into mainstream education.

Have the unique opportunity to be guided on a City Walk through the enchanting streets near the New Delhi railway station by a spirited youngster fully trained as a guide. Learn how the trust provides opportunity for street children as well as gain valuable insight into the heritage and day-to day lives of those living in New Delhi.

Deepalaya - A non-government development organization working on issues affecting the urban and rural poor in India, with a special focus on children. Their mission is to promote and provide qualitative education at affordable costs to children and communities, which are socially and economically deprived. During the recent years, they have also acted as a resource and training institute to other NGOs.