time to make a difference
It’s just 5 weeks to the end of The Intrepid Foundation’s financial year – a time when we tally up all the travellers’ donations received in the last 12 months and Intrepid Travel doubles it by matching donations. Then we speak with 50 fabulous organisations to let them know the good news of how much of their work we are able to support. Jane Crouch, Intrepid’s Responsible Travel Manager, shares the joy of this role…
“I was just talking with the ever-smiling Rith, from Ptea Teuk Dong in Battambang, Cambodia, yesterday and he gave me an update on their marvellous vocational programs for vulnerable young women in their community. Their programs include literacy, vegetable cultivation, sewing and weaving, as well as hospitality training. Rith says they have approximately 30 girls in their programs now, but the demand and need is huge, and with more funding they can build their capacity to take up to 80 girls.
Caroline at Thusanani Children’s Foundation in South Africa, tells us our donations will help enable them to send out more therapists to train caregivers working at several children’s homes. The toddlers, often from HIV impacted families, need structured stimulation programs so they develop their language and social skills. With the opportunity to develop, these children are more likely to be adopted out into families that can offer them a better future than institutional care.
Soraida at Friends of the Asian Elephant in Northern Thailand used our last donation toward extending their infirmary unit for treating injured or sick elephants, and giving them a secure space in which to recuperate. Last year they cared for more than 300 elephant ‘cases’, both at their Lampang base and by their mobile vet unit. In 2011 simply feeding their 5 permanent resident elephants, (including the famous Mosha and Motala – landmine victims with their prosthetic limbs) along with around 30 other short term in-patient elephants, on a mixed diet of grasses, bananas, sticky rice, banana flowers, horse pellets and milk cost more than US$50,000! Imagine if you had to feed them with your household food budget!
And when I ask Katy, of the Village Education Project in the Kilimanjaro region of Tanzania, what she’d like to do with more funding from Intrepid travellers – the simple answer is train up more primary school teachers. In a country where on average less than 10% of children complete primary school and qualify for secondary school, up skilling teachers is one of the most cost-effective ways to enhance the quality of education, especially for village children and raise them and their future families out of poverty.”
These are just 4 of the 50 options offered to Intrepid travellers to make a difference in their travel destination communities. If you donate right now to The Intrepid Foundation, your donations will be matched* by Intrepid Travel and very soon be on their way to helping change the world for the better! Which one will YOU choose?
* Donations will be matched by Intrepid Travel up to AU$5000 (or equivalent) per donor and a total of AU$400,000 each financial year.
Photo: © Friends of the Asian Elephant
