Spending the day photographing with the children from Reaching Hand in Bangalore.
Read MoreWar Remnants Museum
Our first stop was the highly recommended Military Museum. I was keen to see more detail about the military side of Vietnam’s history and specifically the US and french involvement and I was not too be disappointed, but we were also to be surprised and blown away by the museum.
Read MoreLes Petits Ecolies – by the ‘Frenchies’
This is a plug for our new friends the ‘Frenchies’ who we met during our elephant Mahout Training. They have taken time out from there respective careers to travel the world. In addition to seeing the world they have embarked on a personal project to meet children from the countries they are visiting and find out about there thoughts on key and important Environmental Issues!
A fantastic project and a very important one listening and learning to our future generations! Check out and follow the work here!
Huimin
As you have read previously over the last 9 months I have been working with Micro Finance Institutions (MFI) around the world. I was very keen to do some more work with organisations in Asia and after some organisation with the Grameen Foundation, a Bankers without Borders project was set up to visit and photograph as well as provide case studies and stories of the clients of this MFI in the Ningxia Province in China, Huimin.
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Reality Gives
I have worked with a good deal of NGO’s in India over the years but never in Mumbai so, I was keen to get involved and experience how organisations work in this city that is known for its extreme’s of wealth and poverty and for the fact that 55% of the population live in a slum of some sort.
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Later in the day we met Aky
Sebastien Indian Social Projects (SISP)
Like most great organisations it starts with a story. This Story is about Paul Van Gelder. He first came to India in 1994/5 when his brother was working in Chennai, as part of his travels he came to Kerala and Kovalam for a beach break. This particular trip he found himself on the beach and the local children coming up to him and asking him to teach them ‘ABC’s. He obliged.
Read MoreScientific Philanthropy
Part of the cost of our trip was also a fundraising exercise as part of Abercrombie & Kent’s Philanthropic program which has been running for 26 years. The funds raised from the passengers on board as part of the A&K Fighting Climate Change in Antarctica program, was about $12k which was used to pay for scientific equipment for the US Scientific program in Antarctica and more specifically research work at the US base Palmer Station on Anvers Island.
Read MoreSaidia Orphanage
As part of our overland tour we stopped off at one of the charities our tour company support, it is the first time I have visited an orphanage. It was a strange feeling, being surrounded by around 60 children who are all unwanted or mistreated by there parents and abandoned. Try and get your head around that, the people who bring you into this world leave you, abandoned and alone, and we are not just talking about teenagers but children as young as 1! I still cannot get my head around it!
Read MoreJamii Bora
I have been interested and involved with Microfinance (MF) for some years now. It all started in 2008 when I attended a lecture at a Wall Street firm that had brought two peers of MF to its offices. Muhammad Yunus, seen as the godfather of MF, from Bangladesh and founder of Grameen Bank and Ingrid Munro, the godmother or ‘Mama’ of Kenyan MF and Founder of Jamii Bora.
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