An update: Empowerment Tourism and the Pandemic
Below, you’ll find all the information on Empowerment Tourism, both the concept and the success stories, but in these strange times, especially for the tourism industry and communities who are predicted to suffer the worst impact of the situation, we wanted to keep you informed of the situation.
While we have multiple smaller projects around the world, some being on-off agreements of support, Cambodia, India and Vietnam have been our consistent community support projects over the recent years.
All of our projects in Cambodia and Vietnam are now at a self-sufficient level. Over the years, we’ve seen these communities each employment opportunities – both through self-created opportunities, such as food TukTuks that our projects have supported, but also training to gain jobs in the tourism industry. Of course, with the tourism industry on hold, we are aware that there will be job and income loses, and we continue to provide emergency support as and when needed, including our local tour guides visiting these communities to provide real-time and accurate reports on the situation.
In India, work continues on the Empowerment Projects as highlighted in the Dehlight documentary which is still being screened at various festivals.
Meanwhile, closer to home (Sydney, Australia) we are embracing the Empowerment concept in a different way. Initially, of course, this was founded for supporting local communities alongside out tourism arm, Hands on Journeys.
With the core belief of the concept being to support local communities by creating job opportunities, we have founded SLAK flowers to support people who are homeless, one of the most vulnerable communities in our home country.