About Charity Travel

Charity Travel is a large adventurous journey around the world, combining exciting traveling with supporting small-scale charity causes, thereby inspiring other travelers to follow our example. We want to demonstrate through Charity Travel that it is possible to bypass large bureaucracies and individually work with small charities that really need help. The emphasis is on inspiring as many travelers as possible, showing them that traveling can be more than self-indulgence, and that charitable giving can be exciting, cool, and effective at the same time.

...imagine independent charity
bypassing bulky bureaucracies
and reaching the people, while
being incredibly exciting...

We find our causes mainly through the hospitality website couchsurfing.org, which offers reliable contacts to people who are often involved in charitable projects themselves or know how to get to those trustworthy orphanages, streetkids' projects, ecological farms, disease prevention programmes, charity hospitals we intend to support.

...thinking globally, acting with
locals - using young websites
to reach the right people
and help effectively...

In times of all-encompassing economic and touristic globalization we think it becomes important - and possible - for so-called first-world citizens to experience the real world beyond what they see on television and become sensitized about it.

Blogs with personal reflections are available at: kamielverwer.blogspot.com and yellow-duck.tumblr.com

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- Vision -

A world where social networks empower helpers to follow their inclination to do something charitable without
unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles. A world where charitable work is exciting, cool, and effective at the same time. A world where expertise and knowledge of all kind is shared among the neediest communities around the globe. A world where young travelers find professionals responsive to their idealistic intentions so that they are sensitized and will make a rewarding experience.

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- Mission -
It is our mission to spread the concept of Charity Travel. We hope that one day other travelers will set out on journeys even longer than ours, combining even more urgent humanitarian and ecological projects with even more exciting adventures.

To accomplish this, Charity Travel helps its causes on four fronts:
1. Volunteering and donating our expertise and knowledge. We do construction work, artistic work, teaching, farming, daily chores, writing proposals and translating.
2. Making a financial contribution, typically between 100 and 1000 USD (with the exception of the Rainbow CEC). In many cases this amount should be considered a gesture, though sometimes it represents a substantial contribution.
3. Spearhead a movement of Charity Travelers making use of social networks like 'couchsurfing' and 'facebook', and attracting attention from media houses, so that our causes get some publicity. We will produce detailed documentation in the form of the website and a book about all aspects of the journey and spread it around as much as possible to spur the movement.
4. Establishing linkages between needy communities worldwide. We emphasize creating a multi-ethnic inter-religious exchange. For example, agricultural expertise from Kenya could benefit a rural community in Cambodia, a Korean way to preserve food can be applied in Africa, composting knowhow gathered in Mocambique could be used in India, and so on. Expertise from many areas such as HIV/aids prevention, farming, food preservation, community organizing, special education, human rights campaigning could and should be shared worldwide. We encourage travelers to facilitate this sharing by presenting the expertise to communities en route.

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- Identification of Causes -
Charity Travel has been gathering expertise in identifying viable charities and will publish a report about this.
Mainly, we are using the social network 'couchsurfing.org'. However, we have also tried alternative ways of identifying Causes using contacts of friends and established websites such as 'voluntourism.org' and 'idealist.org'.

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- Why so many causes? -
We support a variety of causes because it is our goal to inspire as many young travelers as possible and convince them of the fact that getting involved in independent charity is one of the most exciting things you can do; by picking a multitude of destinations we hope to get some media attention and inspire other travelers to follow our example.

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- Why is Charity Travel unique? -

Charity Travel identifies worthy Causes through social networking sites, notably 'couchsurfing.org'. Currently, Couchsurfing has 1.7 million members in February 2010 and through their sophisticated system of vouching and writing each other references, it generates a high standard of trust and safety. This way of identifying causes was simply not possible half a decade ago.

The explicit emphasis on inspiring travelers and creating a Movement makes Charity Travel more than just a noble initiative. According to our own research, this has not been done before.

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- Who are we inspiring? -

Charity Travel is seeking to encourage and inspire as many travelers as possible to follow and improve our example. These travelers are typically young highschool or college graduates, looking for adventure, though the concept is not restricted to them.

Often, those young travelers would like to support a charitable Cause, yet they don't have the time or financial resources to apply for an official volunteering program as they often require a minimum duration of stay and a substantial financial contribution. These intrepid travelers, exploring the world before they start working or while taking a career break, could however contribute significantly to many charitable project. Furthermore, the aspect of their own sensitization should not be underestimated.

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- Funding -

We have the means to plan, organize, and execute Charity Travel all by ourselves.
Currently we have received about 450$ and spent about 6300$ (as of April 15th, 2010)

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- How to support -
We are looking into possibility of making Charity Travel an official non-profit organization in order to make sure donations are tax-deductible. Apart from that, we are open to constructive critiques, suggestions and established organizations that would be willing to cooperate with us or that consider sponsoring our project. Spreading the idea of Charity Travel by word of mouth will be the most effective way that you can help.

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- Charity Travel in the Media -
We have written to numbers of media during different stages of the project. We do welcome media attention since it is part of our mission to encourage travelers to follow our example. Charity Travel has a facebook group and a twitter page.

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/group.php?gid=180322347728&ref=ts

http://twitter.com/CTkamielyeon

- Multilingual publishing -

This website is entirely in English. However, friends have kindly offered us their help to translate the main outline in French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Russian, Korea, Portuguese, Mandarin and Turkish, that can be found by clicking on the corresponding flag.
We are looking for a translation of the main page into Arabic, Indonesian, Italian, Vietnamese, Polish, Swahili and more. We would greatly appreciate your help.


Thank you.