“Welcome! Everything you see here is home-made!” Sarvar says with great pride. He speaks of the grand morning feast he has prepared for us which was entirely made up of his home-grown products: the delicious Tajik naan bread, fresh from the oven; the small cups and plates of various nuts and dried raisins; and Chakka – a tasty Tajik specialty made with sour milk. Accompanying all this is the fresh mulberry juice and the exquisite honey, extracted from pollen of the unique mountain flowers of Tajikistan.

In the last twenty years, the Salaam Baalak Trust (SBT) has helped thousands of children come off the streets and into a safe and nurturing environment. SBT has five 24-hour shelters (one devoted to girls), with 50 to 55 children visiting each. The Trust provides a holistic safety net of services catering to the individual needs of street children in Delhi and Mumbai, covering the entire area of child development from physical and medical care to the educational, creative, cognitive, social and vocational needs of the children.

In India as in most other places in the world, indigenous communities often exist on the fringe of society and their socio-political situation is complex. It is important for us to provide our guests with accurate and up-to-date information. Inevitably we have more information than can be easily digested on one holiday experience; our greatest challenge is to summarise centuries of history and evolution into bite size pieces! A common assumption our travellers make is that all indigenous communities share the same customs and costumes.

(English translation follows Spanish text) El diseño de nuevos circuitos turísticos en el Valle del Colca es una tarea que demanda un análisis cuidadoso de los recursos, financiamiento y expectativas locales. Los circuitos, corredores económicos típicos ancestrales y hasta senderos peatonales de uso cotidiano, sirven como uno de los primeros elementos, a los que se van sumando atractivos no conocidos, actividades distribuidas a lo largo de un año cronológico como festividades religiosas, actividades agrícolas, eventos sociales, entre otros; a fin de generar una…

By Ng Sebastian – When I was a tour guide, I used to joke with my clients that there are two things that make Indonesians different: sarung and kampung (or sarong and kampong). A sarung is a brightly coloured woven fabric worn by both men and women in Indonesia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. The word kampung is similar to ‘village’ in English. Most Indonesians have a kampung asal, or village of origin. Wherever they live and whatever they do, they can usually trace back to their village of origin.

Daniela Ruby Papi, PEPY Tours – Our goal is that people who join us on a trip will be inspired to live, travel and give differently after their trip to Cambodia. We aim to expose travelers to the people and ideas that are having the most impact on the issues we are looking to effect change in: education, the environment, and health. We focus less on service and more on learning, and like to look at our trips as edu-ventures: educational adventures which allow travelers to support projects, programs, and people we believe in.

Danielle Weiss, Planeterra Foundation – My first volunteer experience was a two-month solo trip to the Middle East when I was 19 where I divided my time between volunteering on a kibbutz and travelling throughout Israel and Egypt. This first experience enabled me to make lasting friendships with local people, gain an in-depth knowledge of their daily life, and build the confidence to know that I could travel alone as a single woman.

Inkaterra develops and implements, through the NGO Inkaterra Association, various projects to help preserve the local environment and manage economic development in a sustainable manner. These projects take place at the bank of Madre de Dios River in the rainforest – where Inkaterra Reserva Amazonica lodge is located – and at the Inkaterra Machu Picchu Pueblo Hotel, in the Machu Picchu cloud forest.

Historically residents of Mangalajodi village posed a threat to bird life. Many families turned the lucrative poaching trade and it wasn’t long before bird numbers hit an all-time low. A local conservation organization Wild Orissa meet with the villagers a decade ago and has been instrumental in guiding their transformation ever since. Poachers developed an intricate knowledge of bird habitats, breeding cycles and migration patterns. The challenge was to utilise this knowledge and their existing skill-set for conservation.