Children pose for Photographer Fredrik Pettersen, Sep 2009, Chepang Hill Trail
A historic day for socialtours as it reaches eight years of operation in May 2010. Today, Raj Gyawali, Founder Director, socialtours and Brian Hunter, Country Director, Save the Children, Nepal & Bhutan, signed a contract to promote social tourism and fundraise to support children's issues in Nepal. This is in keeping with both organisations long term commitments, Save the Children's commitment to support children's issues and socialtours commitment to find avenues to integrate tourism into social development. This agreement will touch on two different inter-related areas of Voluntourism and Fundraising Tours.
Voluntourism
Volunteers from different sectors can be of help to contribute and transfer their skills for SC program through their support for partner NGO's, schools and children. Volunteers can be students, tourists, individuals, corporate or from any sector. This program will intergrate volunteering into stand-alone tourism packages (hence falling under the perview of Voluntourism) whereby visitors mix social engagement with leisure activities as part of their tour in Nepal. At socialtours, volunteering has always been an immersive way to travel, integrating social work with tourism activities, so this fits perfectly into this model.
Fundraising Tours
Fundraising tours in Nepal will be arranged specially for individuals and their groups residing abroad and in Nepal. Such tours value-add to existing stand-alone tourism packages for tourists in that it includes an element of giving back to the communities that they visit as part of their tour. Such tours may also be adapted to Charity Challenges, where a group of sponsored individuals undertake an adventure challenge. ST are experts in designing tailormade adventure tours, and SC is a perfect partner for incorporating a cause component.
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