The Adventure Company Foundation

The Adventure Company Foundation was set up to enable us to donate money to local charities and projects. We ask each of our customers travelling with us for a £1 donation which we match. The money is held in a separate account, away from company funds, and by keeping administration charges small (which are paid for by The Adventure Company) we can guarantee that 100% of the money donated goes to the project it’s designated to.

Our clients and our staff believe in The Adventure Company Foundation, and working together we’re sure we can reach and even exceed our aim of £8000 from client donations for charitable projects this year. We hope that through such a joint-venture we have the basis to be able to grow our support to good causes around the world, with your help, for many years to come.

Where does the money go?

Every year based on suggestions from our local agents, staff and customers we compile a list of small grass root projects that are in need of our help. We then ask our customers to help us decide which four projects we should support over the year.

Current projects

Travelling between January and March 2010

Donations made by customers travelling between January and March this year will be sent to the Agra Wildlife SOS centre for rescued bears to support the work that they do. Although banned in 1972 there are still around 800 dancing bears performing on the streets in India.
To make the bears dance a crude iron needle is heated and driven through their muzzle without anesthesia or any other antibiotic at the tender age of just six months. The bears live the rest of their lives at the end of a four foot long rope and with no stimulation at all causing several mental symptoms. Male cubs are also castrated at a very young age by use of a razor, without anesthesia or antibiotics and canine teeth are removed when one year old by knocking them out with a metal rod.

For the rest of its life the bear will dance on the road to earn money. The wound on the muzzle will never heal and often be infested with maggots. Most of the bears will "bear" the suffering only for a few years since they will die due to Tuberculosis, Leptrospirosis or Rabies.

In March 2010 we’ll be asking you once again for your help in deciding which next two projects we should support with the money donated from customers travelling from March onwards. 

Recent donation from customers travelling between Oct and Dec 09

During this period we collected £2486 in total to support the Trees for Life project in Sri Lanka. The money donated by our customers, which was matched by our Foundation, will go a long way to help their important educational conservation programme. The donation will pay for the educational programme to be rolled out to 40 schools, and over 2,000 children. As well as learning about conservation techniques, the children will also plant 4,000 trees and create butterfly and medicinal gardens at their schools. The sapling trees that are planted are grown by small satellite nurseries run by local women, providing them with an important source of income.

“We are delighted that The Adventure Company has joined our Trees for Life campaign, what better way to protect our environment than to place it in the hands of our children. Thanks to their help and their customers, this year our school children environment and biodiversity conservation programme will educate over 2,000 school children who’ll visit and experience the Hiyare Rain Forest, learn conservation techniques and will plant indigenous forest trees in areas that need restoration.” Charamrie Maalge Responsible Tourism Partnership.

Read about our previous one-off projects

Read more...HideJul – Sep 09 Kenya - Enkereri Primary School - £1783
Donations collected during this period were sent to a primary school supported by Friends of Conservation within the Masai Mara, to help them set up a water catchment system. There are 120 children at the school aged from 5 to 12 and with water constantly in short supply, the new system will enable the school to capture and use rainwater.

Apr – Jun 09 India – Ranthambore School - £1035
The money collected went to help a local junior school in Ranthambore. There are many tasks that the school needed help with, including building walls for the classrooms, replacing the old tin roof, fitting doors and windows and a new water tank, and the money collected will go someway to helping with these. You can see photos of the school here School Photos

Jan – Mar 09 Uganda – Bwindi School – £645
During this period we supported a local school in Bwindi, Uganda. The school was set up to support the orphans of the area by providing them with an education and helping to reduce the travelling time for many of these children. In 2007 we were able to donate money to help build four classrooms, and the additional money collected went towards buying windows for the school.

Oct - Dec 08 Rwanda - Streets Ahead Children’s Centre UK - £1,625.00
SACC is a UK-based charity set up to help the street children of Rwanda who continue to suffer the effects of genocide. SACCA currently owns land near the town of Kayonza. Upon this land is their girls’ income generating workshop, which provides income-generating opportunities to vulnerable girls under SACCA care and those who have been reintegrated into the community within the independent living programme. An adjacent plot of land, which is suitable for cultivation, became available and your money helped fund the purchase.

SACCA works with street children that have been abandoned by their families or who have left their families for other reasons. As part of their work they prepare children for reintegration into communities and teach them skills that they need to function as part of a family. A core part of the programme involves various team building activities both within centre life and as part of their work in the community where the children work together to help poor families such as child headed households and families living with HIV. Being able to purchase the land, benefits the project and its children in following ways:

• Provide an environment for team-building activities, focusing on the development of self-esteem.
• Facilitate training on cultivation, so that the children can use this skill when they are reintegrated (where all children in rural areas contribute to the family in this manner).
• Facilitate training on cultivation so that the children may use this skill when re-entering the community as part of SACCA’s independent living programme.
• Provide for the cultivation of crops, which can be consumed by the children within the project (thus reducing project expenditure on food) and where the excess produced, generate income for the project through sale.
  
  Jul - Sep 08 Vietnam - Thai Nguyen Disadvantaged Children’s Centre - £2,367.00
  Money collected went to projects running at the Thai Nguyen Disadvantaged Child Education Centre, which is 50 miles north of Hanoi. About 200 kids aged 6 to 18 study here; 120 stay at the Centre and 80 come for the day. Their disabilities include being blind, mute or deaf, though with some basic sign language, visitors can easily communicate with these smart and friendly children. The centre has 16 classrooms but is severely lacking in amenities to care for the children, who must share beds (3 children to a bed) and only 5 squat toilets and one small water tank. Key areas where your funding is helping include building a new water tank for the school, painting classrooms, renovating the toilet & bathroom area and teaching English to the blind children.
  
  Apr - Jun 08 Bulgaria - Best Practice Environmental leaflet for lodges and hotels - £1,055.00
  Money collected paid for the creation and publication of a leaflet that advises Best Environmental Practice for refuges and small hotels in Bulgaria. Bulgaria is a developing country in terms of tourism and as a result we have a real chance in conjunction with our agents to influence this development. It is essential to try to work with hotels at this early stage and hopefully we can see the growth of Bulgaria as a destination occur with a commitment to protect the environment as well. This leaflet will enable these hotels not only to improve their impact on the environment but in many cases to save money through improved water use, energy efficiency and reduced waste.
  
  Jan - Mar 08 India - School in Sawai Madhopur - £1,475.00
  Your money was donated to a school for deaf and dumb children in Sawai Madhopur in India. The school is 2km from Ranthambore National Park and some groups on our ‘Tigers, Taj & Temples’ and ‘Wildlife Safari’ trips have visited it. In total there are 35 children, all deaf and dumb, with 10 girls and 25 boys. The students are generally very poor and this type of school is not something that is well-supported locally. The money will go a long way to helping these children get those crucial first few steps on the education ladder.
  
  Oct - Dec 07 Vietnam/China - Bear Bile Extraction - £1,133.00
  With the money collected in this period we helped support a project run by Born Free, for bears that have been subjected to bile extraction in South East Asia and China. We are giving the money to support a bear rehabilitation centre for animals that have been rescued from this squalid existence.
  
  Aug - Oct 07 Uganda - Bwindi Orphanage - £2,611.00
  
  Money collected went towards supporting a local school in Uganda. The school was originally set up to support the orphans of the area by providing them with an education. With the money donated we were able to help build four much needed classrooms.
  
  May - Jul 07 Tanzania - Arusha Children’s Trust - £1,581.00
  The Trust’s school, located in a remote village roughly an hour outside of Arusha, was built by our local supplier to help teach young children who would not otherwise have access to any sort of formal education. Their schooling helps these children develop a wider understanding of the world they live in as well as providing one hot meal a day – a meal which provides the key source of nutrition for many of these children. With over 80 students, the work of the school’s director isn’t easy, which is why we offer our financial support – to help them develop further.
  
  Feb - Apr 07 Ecuador - Yacuma School Furniture - £1,717.00
  We were alerted to a small local school in Ecuador, which although newly built was in desperate need of chairs and desks. The money collected over these three months allowed us to buy all this equipment for the school.
  
  Nov - Jan 07 Nepal -Trisulu Community centre - £958.00
  We worked with our local agent in Nepal to help fund the building of a new sports and community centre. The centre helps to unite underprivileged youngsters from the surrounding villages and provides various educational facilities. The centre has been built with four aims in mind: recreation, team-work, vocational skills and entrepreneurship.
  
  Aug - Oct 06 Morocco - Schools funding - £1,165.00
  Supporting a local school in the Atlas Mountains in Morocco, money collected during this period enabled the school to install much needed heating to help during the cold winter months.
  
  May - Jul 06 Sri Lanka - Sri Lanka house-building - £411.00
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People returning from our trips have often asked us if through us they can make a donation to a specific project or cause that they have seen while on one of our holidays. We regret that we are unable to do this and can only take donations towards the projects we support already. We do, however, always welcome suggestions and if you would like to recommend a project or initiative to support, please email our Responsible Tourism team on rt@adventurecompany.co.uk

As well as donating to the Foundation, you can also support local charities and projects by booking onto specific trips, find out more