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The Exodus Travels Foundation supports a variety of projects around the world, designed to maximise the benefits tourism can bring. We recognise that each project is unique to the region, but our overall aims are always the same: to educate and empower individuals, and protect the environment. It may take the form of providing medical support to a remote village that large aid organisations can’t reach, or supporting a small local charity that helps people learn skills to escape poverty, or fundraising to build a life-changing water supply. What unites these disparate projects is simple: the ability to use local knowledge and connections to ensure our efforts are best placed to create maximum benefit.
We’re passionate about the welfare of hardworking trekking porters. As well as setting the golden standard for fair treatment, we’ve gone beyond with our pioneering Porter Project. In Peru, few porters have ever seen Machu Picchu, despite trekking the Inca Trail numerous times. We’ve taken the initiative to fix this and in 2018 started a project to ensure every one of our Peruvian porters have the chance to see this important part of their own cultural heritage. Our 2017 mini-documentary ‘Carried Away’ about our porters was nominated in several awards. Exodus became the first to ever enable its porters to visit the lost city.
On Kilimanjaro, Exodus has been setting the standards for best practice and fair treatment for years but has consistently gone above and beyond. Funding off-season porter schools and scholarships for promising porters to train as guides was just the start – we’re one of only a few operators on Kilimanjaro to employ women on the trek itself. In a patriarchal society, we’re doing our bit to help redress the balance and give these ladies a chance to earn their independence. The last of the 120 porters who work for Exodus on the Inca Trail will be visiting Machu Picchu in Spring 2019
What happens when one Irishman takes on the Inca Trail – as a porter?! In 2016, Jarlath McHale took on Peru’s most famous trek, the Inca Trail. In 2017, he went back to complete the same four day route – but this time as one of the porters who so inspired him first time round. Filmed and edited by our own videographer.
Our connections with the world of adventure travel mean we have the expertise, contacts and local knowledge to be able to help isolated mountain communities that large aid organisations simply can’t reach. Many of our projects have taken place in the Himalaya. In Ladakh, the initiatives we’ve put in place have included but are not limited to installing UV water filters to stop the spread of plastic waste, sponsoring several award-winning women’s eco-cafes, and rebuilding a temple following extensive flood damage. In Nepal, we’ve installed 50 eco-friendly solar cookers in the Everest region, building schools and donating hundreds of smokeless stoves to villages.
Following the 2015 earthquakes in Nepal our Earthquake Appeal raised over £180,000. The money was used as a mixture of emergency relief of medicine and food supplies to remote communities, and longer-term projects including rebuilding three schools, numerous homes and organising a 3-day medical camp for those affected in the Thulopatel region. The 2015 Nepal Earthquake Appeal raised over £180,000 in relief money
One year on since the earthquake that devastated Nepal struck, we sent our very own filmmaker Olly Pemberton out to the beautiful mountain nation to find out how the funds raised by our Emergency Appeal are being used to help remote communities where the big aid agencies don't go.
Since the Inspiration Project began in 2017, we’ve sponsored more than 4,500 children on 143 inspirational day trips in 29 countries. Each trip is designed to introduce young minds to the wonders of our world and their place in it. From cultural heritage sites to natural wonders, each trip has been packed with firsts – their first time seeing the sea, their first time visiting a busy city, the first time they left their own village. Each outing is accompanied by an Exodus leader who volunteers their time, knowledge and passion for their own country to inspire a new generation to feel proud of where they’re from – and galvanised to protect it. In Kenya we took a class of children to the Masai Mara for the first time for a safari; by the end of the day, half the pupils wanted to become safari guides and protect the species and the plains. For 2019 we hope to take another 3,000 young people from disadvantaged backgrounds away on these trips.
Exodus leader, Mika, takes a group of 16 school children on their first safari. The children travelled to the Naboisho Conservancy in Kenya, adjacent to the Maasai Mara National Reserve. The density of lions within Naboisho is one of the highest in the world.
This small charity is focussed on helping women in rural communities in Nepal during their menstrual cycle. Many Nepalese women don’t have access to sanitary products and are socially ostracized whilst menstruating, despite the Nepalese government officially making the practice illegal recently. Freedom Kitbags distributes reusable sanitary pads, teaches menstrual hygiene and fights this outdated stigma which prevents women from going to school, seeing their families and in extreme cases even living in their own homes whenever they are menstruating. The pads are reusable and are therefore ecologically friendly.
Nepal is home to a deep-rooted cultural tradition and menstrual taboo resulting in a practice known as Chhaupadi – the banishment of girls and women from school, work, society and even their own homes during their period.
The rural community of Ilbaan on the fringe of the Masai Mara is in dire need of clean, healthy drinking water. This simple, efficient project is designed to do that in a sustainable, eco-friendly way. We’re working with small charity the Maa Trust to build a rainwater collection point in a central point for the village, near the school, which (based on average rainfall) will collect enough clean water to ensure each of the 1200 residents have access to nearly 6 litres of clean, safe water every day.