Exodus Gives Back With New Program

In a world increasingly marked by greed and strife, some companies are notable for the good they do. These companies have chosen to embody the credo: Be the change you want to see in the world.

With the decision to mark its 43rd birthday with a gift that keeps on giving, Exodus Travels has announced a special responsible tourism initiative that will take at least 2,017 local, disadvantaged children on mini-Exodus tours of their own.

The decision to give back to the communities where Exodus guides travel and work was an easy one. The company knows that before the future stewards of the world’s great tourism spots can be truly engaged in their preservation, they must first experience them. For many of the children taking these journeys it will be the first time they have left their villages even though these tourism hotspots might be only a short drive away.

These educational day trips mean that local children will not only have the opportunity to experience the same adventures as Exodus clients, but learn first-hand about their country’s amazing contributions to the world. In Nepal, for instance, children will head out of Kathmandu for the Himalayan foothills to go on a trek. Ecuadoran children will visit a bird refuge to see among others, the endangered Andean Condor. And in Kenya, a 13-year-old boy named Meretei was recently among a group of schoolchildren to go on a game drive in the Naboisho conservancy, on the outskirts of the Masai Mara.

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Despite living just 30 minutes away, most of the children in Meretei’s class had never seen any of the Big Five, let alone been on a game drive. This special field trip brought these teenagers up close with leopards, elephants, buffalo, lions and more. And while seeing the elephants for the first time left a big impression, for Meretei, it rivaled another first-time experience: eating ice cream.

Although the challenges in preserving the world’s most precious cultural and natural resource aren’t easily solved with a field trip and a scoop of Rocky Road, hopefully, these eye-opening journeys will lay a foundation for future generations’ impassioned protection of the environment and the world’s man-made treasures.