Travel With Purpose: Building Ethical Community Partnerships with Candice Young of Trek Relief
episode
The RISE Traveler: Unpacking Conversations of Sustainable Travel
17 min
2 speakers
3 chapters
transcribed 1 month ago
Transcript
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Hello, hello, hello, wherever you are in the world today. Thank you for joining us on the Rise Traveler, unpacking conversations of sustainable travel. We're here to move a step beyond that Instagram-ready world of travel and think critically and deeply about how travel can uplift global communities, protect natural ecosystems, and be a source of growth. for travelers. And here at the Rise Travel Institute, we are committed to empowering travelers and travel professionals through education. Our programs, research, experiential journeys, scholarships, and free resources are all aimed at bringing you closer to a more responsible and ethical travel experience. So you can learn more by visiting risetravelinstitute.org.
I'm your host, Amy Hager. Welcome. And joining me today remotely is Candice Young with Trek Relief. Candice, thank you for joining me.
Oh my gosh, thanks so much for having me. It's really a big pleasure to be here with you guys.
Well, I'm excited to dive in today, and I think we're going to play around with this theme of travel with purpose. But before we really get into that, tell us a little bit more about Trek Relief, what you all do, and how you're supporting, I'm going to say, the world.
Yeah, so basically Trek Relief. We are a 501c3 nonprofit based out of California. And what we do is we partner adventure travel with projects with the community. And so basically it's a rose. I mean, the foundations came from the earthquake after Nepal, in Nepal in 2015. It was a lot of devastation. I walked through some Himalayan villages that were really destroyed, saw how much devastation need there was there and people asking for help, especially from tourists. And so then organized a fundraiser to help bring funds into that village to help the survivors rebuild their livelihoods. So combining a little bit of adventure travel, but with something that's really meaningful and asked for by the communities so that can help them get back on their feet in moments of need.
And I think asked for by the communities is such a great way of phrasing that. And so I'm kind of curious, and maybe that's where we can start today, is when you co-create with local communities, what does that look like in practice, not just in theory? Like kind of unpack that for us.
Yeah. So that's actually something really a great question because one thing that we have to stay away from, especially when we're talking about like ethical travel and not uh imposing maybe western ideologies into a foreign culture is this idea of like this white savior complex um because it could be very easy to like go into a new land and be like why are they doing light like this this could be done better oh i saw this done over there like this and also why aren't they using these materials and like it's very easy to bring our own ideology into a new place that we don't fully, that we just literally just got there and we're like, why? You know, and that's, those are very difficult questions to come up.
And I think that's great to have that curiosity, but to, it can be quite dangerous to be like, but this is better. And why aren't you doing this? And I think these are all valid thoughts, but also it's really important what kind of attitude you're bringing to the table when we're trying to like collaborate with communities. So, Number one, it's really important to first observe and then also listen for what the actual requests are. Instead of, oh, this is, oh, you want this, but this is the best solution, right? So I think it's really, be really careful about that.
I think that's smart. And really that listening and having a conversation that also creates the learning experience for you. And I think it's so interesting as a traveler. And especially if you are volunteering in some of these relief areas to learn a different way of building something or going about something. And so when a traveler is thinking that something may be helpful when they visit a community, but it isn't, is there things that really jump out to you that some of us assume?
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