Costa Rica’s ‘connection to nature’

CNN’s Holly Firfer takes you on a beautiful getaway to the tiny nation of Costa Rica with the help of Globe Aware.

CNN

By Karley Kiker
SPECIAL CONTRIBUTOR

September 2014

By the time she was blowing out the candles on her 30th birthday cake, Hockaday alumna Kimberly Haley-Coleman had already earned an MBA in international business, worked as the VP of business development for a Houston-based aerospace company, and done more international traveling, connecting, communicating, and strategizing than most ambassadors.

And yet, would you believe it? Her mission to take on the world was just getting started.

“I grew up traveling with my grandmother and family,” Haley-Coleman recalled

Years later, after accepting career opportunities that required globe-trotting, “I would find myself abroad over the weekends, and I’d done so much tourism growing up that it lost its intrigue.” A long-time lover of volunteerism with a background in nonprofits, Haley-Coleman attempted to start volunteering in countries where she was already traveling for business purposes – emphasis on attempted. Due to her short-term availability, "Nobody wanted me." But she wanted them – the people living beyond the tourist checkpoints, that is. And so she founded Globe Aware, a nonprofit that’s been sending volunteers to countries all around the world for short-term service projects since 2000.

No matter the project emphasis, the purpose of each Globe Aware trip is twofold: to offer aid without changing culture, and to teach sustainable skills.

“If you’re able to give two-and-a-half years, you will learn much more about that culture,” said Haley-Coleman, who has traveled to 75 countries. “It’s not that [Globe Aware] is the only way or the best way- it’s a way that’s accessible to people who otherwise aren’t able to do this .” Take high school students, for example – in particular, the kind who really want to help, but only have a few weeks of summer to spare.

“This was really the first time I’d done anything like this,” incoming Hockaday freshman Amelia Brown said of her recent Globe Aware trip to Peru, from which she returned in early June. “We have so much and we live with so many luxuries [in America] – they live with so little but they’re all still really happy. Everyone basically relies on each other.” Sophomore Ashna Kumar came away from the service trip with similar impressions.

While she has volunteered locally by tutoring and visiting hospitals, projects such as installing pipelines in Peru and renovating a boarding house proved to be completely eye-opening experiences for the Hockadaisy.

“I really appreciated all the stuff that we have at Hockaday and in Dallas, and all the accommodations we have here,” Ashna said. “I never realized that there are people actually living in huts. I obviously knew that, but we just have it so great here.” There’s a difference between knowing facts and statistics about third world countries, and experiencing the poverty and the need firsthand. The latter incites a revelation that Haley-Coleman, who graduated from Hockaday in 1988, can still relate to.

“Going to a school like Hockaday – even living in Dallas – it’s hard to understand the level of privilege that we experience,” Haley-Coleman said. “People go into [Globe Aware trips] thinking they might save someone or help someone.

Really, we’re working side-by-side with individuals in the community.” Not to mention, with each other. Despite the fact that Ashna didn’t initially know any of the other Hockaday students who served alongside her in Peru, “We all became really close over the two weeks we were there. We bonded in a different way than we would have at school.”

Park Cities People

Costa Rica Orosi Valley

VOLUNTOURISM A new way to travel and give back! Costa Rica Orosi Valley About an hour from the city of San Jose, in a gorgeous, hidden valley (Orosi) rests the tiny community of El Yaz known for Its clean water, rich soil eternal, spring-like temperatures (about 75 degrees every day) and organic, agricultural way of life. Although the villagers love their natural paradise they have struggled to make ends meet as even low paying jobs are rare. Most Villagers are not in abject poverty, but have no access to hot water, cars, or the quantity or protein sources to which a North American may be accustomed. Volunteer vacationers in this paradise location stay in one of two side by side mountain top houses.

Built In traditional Costa Rican style, furnished with fans and comfortable beds. These include Western-style bathrooms and showers, and hot water. On the nine-acre property are many fruit trees, spectacular views, hiking paths, many tropical birds, a covered gazebo social area, basketball court and hammocks.

Volunteers are fed plenty of fresh, healthy, abundant, Costa Rican dishes, heavy with fresh fruits, vegetables, rice and beans, with some chicken egg and beef dishes. Electricity is available, though on a more limited basis than you may be used to at home.

While traveling for business in the late 1990’s, Kimberly Haley-Coleman often found herself in foreign countries with free time on her hands, and a desire to see beyond the traditional tourist attractions.

On one trip to Brazil she remembers looking for short volunteer opportunities but could only find multi week options.

“I found that so many people wanted the same thing I did, but once you’ve got kids, a mortgage and a busy lifestyle, you can’t go and take three weeks off," says the former global strategist and business development officer whose portfolio Includes CNBC.com. “Everyone dreams of going Into the Peace Corps. but that’s a two-and-a"half year commitment."

In 2000, Haley-Coleman founded Globe Aware, a nonprofit specializing in weeklong service-inspired vacations around the world. Since then, the voluntourism movement has taken hold, and many of the nonprofit and for-profit companies are offering shorter trips catering got busy Westerners with limited vacation days. Most of Globe Aware’s programs are built around a predetermined service project that can be finished In seven days. From installing concrete floors in the homes of Guatemala single mothers to building wheelchairs for Cambodian land mine victims, participants spend 30 to 35 hours working in an immersive environment, with the option of visiting the area’s important attractions in their free time. But even the traditional tourist activities are designed to promote cultural awareness.

"Our volunteers come away with a real understanding of both the beauties and the challenF.es of a culture," says Haley-Coleman. "I would argue that' s more Important than the physical projects we work on-being able to make that human connection and understand each other’s view of the world.”

Perreault Magazine

Writer George Rush has appeared in Conde NastTraveler, Travel + Leisure, Departures, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Esquire and other magazines. To better connect with his young son, Eamon, George embarked on a number of trips throughout the world, seeking adventure and new experiences:

How Traveling the World with My Son Brought Us Closer

George Rush

June 13, 2014

(All photos courtesy of George Rush)

My dad took our family on typical vacations when I was growing up " Gettysburg, Williamsburg, the Wisconsin Dells. We stopped for clamwiches at Howard Johnson' s. It wasn' t until I was in my 30s that I left the United States.

When I finally procured a passport, I lit out with friends on a three-month trip around the world. We were in Kashmir, riding horses through the Himalayan foothills, when we crossed paths with an American couple and their two children. I found it incredible that these kids were experiencing such an ethereal place. Then and there, I said to myself, "If I ever have a kid, he or she is coming with me!"

My son, Eamon, was 1 year old when he got his passport. He picked up his first few immigration stamps in Europe and the Caribbean. Later, my wife, Joanna, and I, who are both journalists, started taking him farther afield " to Tunisia and Indonesia.

Eamon, 10, in Ghana.

One year, I got an assignment in Ghana. Joanna couldn' t break away from work. I asked Eamon, then 10, if he wanted to go. He said, "Sure," though he later claimed he thought I' d said, "We' re gonna go on a vacation!"

I wanted to push the boundaries this time. So, besides touring the West African nation, we volunteered with Globe Aware, an organization that helps build schools. Eamon had never been a big chore-doer. But, in Ghana, he carried lumber, mixed cement, and sawed iron rods. He played soccer with village kids and showed them American football. He went to a voodoo ceremony, where, he likes to recall, I got a little carried away with the trance drumming and ritual libations. It was his longest time away from his mom. But he came home with some stories " like the day he scared a toddler who' d never seen a white boy.

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Eamon was 13 when he and I went to Madagascar. His cement-mixing skills came in handy on another school construction site, this one run by Azafady, a pioneering NGO. He also helped take a census of frogs on an island crawling with lemurs, chameleons, and other species found nowhere else on earth. His main project was getting me to grow a beard. I didn' t want to grow a beard, but he seemed to think it was something dads did in the wild.  He also insisted on naming my beard "Sebastian." He asked Malagasy strangers if they wanted to touch Sebastian. Thankfully, most declined.

Last summer, we headed to Ecuador. By then, the burbling " tween I' d brought to Ghana had turned into a supremely cool 15-year-old who spoke to us sporadically. But, once we' d left the States, once he couldn' t text his friends and he' d run through all the movies he' d downloaded, he had no one left to talk to but me. We fell into our routines: gags with sleep masks and neck pillows, inside jokes about invasive worms, Eamon goading me to grow another beard.  Again, we volunteered.

The terrific VenaEcuador program arranged for us to live with families while we tutored students in the Galapagos. We met some more astonishing creatures: Darwin' s finches, slag heaps of iguanas, the blue-footed booby. The trip was infused with more adrenalin " rafting, scuba-diving, mountain-biking, volcano-climbing. I tried to keep up.  Fortunately, I now had someone who could help pull into the boat or through the hole in a cave.

It' s funny how you sometimes have to go far away to get closer. Eamon now appreciates more of what he sees around him. But there' s never a bad age for a kid to discover the world' s wonders and sorrows, and feel what it' s like to be an outsider. This summer, we' re due to volunteer in Kenya with the anti-poaching foundation, Big Life. Now Eamon is the one who can grow the beard. My only question: what will I name it?

George Rush has written for the Conde Nast Traveler, Travel + Leisure, Departures, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, and Esquire, among other magazines.  His new book is, Scandal: A Manual.

Yelena Parker, expatriate, executive coach and writer with The Huffington Post recently shared her views on volunteering abroad after reaching 40.

In a nutshell, Yelena says “Dot it!”

Read her insight and averviews for yourself:

4 Reasons Why You Should Volunteer Abroad at 40

Life begins at 40. Forties are the new twenties. We have heard, spoken and overused these sentiments, more so during the year we turned 40. Big dates make us pause, review where our lives have taken us, reevaluate our priorities and set new goals. Some people choose to go through a radical change: have an affair, get a divorce, get married (again or finally), have a child. Many are interested in restyling their careers: it is time for me to do what I really want! Others are happy with a few new toys that their hard-earned money can finally buy: a fancy car, an upgraded house.

For those who do not to have children, a change of scenery to clear their heads and think through what the next 10, 20, 30… years are going to be like, is an easy solution. What is it going to be: an exotic location to relax and spoil yourself, or a destination to make a difference for communities in need? Sign up for a few months and break to:

1. Check back with your ambitions and passions
Do you remember what they were? Yes, I am talking to you, careerists! In the past 20 years you have pushed upwards, onwards, worked crazy hours and told yourself that there was going to be a reward once you were done. What was that reward exactly? What does done mean? We are so overconnected and overplugged in that there is rarely any time left for seriously thinking about who we wanted to be at the start of the career journey. Were you planning to get out of the corporate world to go satisfy your passion for teaching? Have you been telling your friends about this amazing book idea for the past 10 years? Did you want to try something new before you actually commit to a career change? Was your dream to start your own business? Volunteering projects allow you to enjoy new environment, get new ideas and test the old ones while you are actively helping a local community. They also are a fertile ground for discussions about life, universe, priorities as well as comparing experiences.

2. Understand the current gap year generation
You know how people in your office sometimes start their complaints with “These recent graduates, I just don’t get them! They… ” Joining a group of volunteers in any country in Africa gives you instant access to the minds and hearts of the current gap year generation. Their experiences growing up are drastically different from yours. They are idealists and seek meaning from the start of their first jobs. They don’t just want to go to the university, but rather want to know why and how they will apply their education. You will also realize that you are not really that different. It just took you extra 20 years to articulate the same goals and feel safe to pursue them.

3. Create new friendships
Eight-hundred Facebook friends is a fun number, but when was the last time you made a real friend? Chances are if you are in a career race anywhere in the world, you barely manage to keep up with people who you have got close to over the years across many countries. Maybe you meet a few interesting and useful contacts, or get a few new friends in the office.
Shared volunteering experiences create strong new friendships. You bond across a wide range of age groups. You have time for endless debates and discoveries, laughs and silly games besides your hard work. Yes, volunteering is work! Just unpaid. Meet new people, both locals and fellow volunteers and be open to share who you are and why you are on this journey far away from home. Enjoy your new friendships!

4. Learn about new cultures
You have traveled so much for work and on holiday that there isn’t possibly anything new you could learn. Wrong! Volunteering sites provide access to unedited life stories, local reality and needs. You can be in a beautiful hotel in the north of Zanzibar, for example, and never speak to a single person who grew up there. Even if you do speak to them, it’s most likely going to be a set of polite greetings.
When you volunteer, you become part of the community. There is something truly amazing about walking through a village and hear people of all ages call out to you from their homes: “Teacher Nicole! Teacher Pauline! Teacher Toni!” Whether you are 18 or 40, your status is of an educator. You will also meet the locals and understand what their lives are like. You will get extra interpretation of what you have learned from your volunteer coordinators.
 
Turning 40? Never volunteered abroad? If you read the post this far, I hope you sign up for a project close to your heart!

The Huffington Post

Chis Clayton has compiled an interesting list of 85 Things That Have Made Travel Better. Featured in Delta Sky Magazine‘s June 2014 Innovation Issue, #24 is VOLUNTOURISM:

“Global Travelers are increasingly choosing to mix travel and philanthropy, from building soccer fields to helping orphaned lion cubs. Some well-regarded programs include Roadmonkey, Globe Aware, and Habitat for Humanity …”

Sky

By Sucheta Rawal

Travel Writer

Posted: 06/09/2014 4:27 pm EDT Updated: 06/09/2014 4:59 pm EDT

Huffington Post, Travel Section

Volunteer vacationing, or voluntourism, is a relatively new phenomenon that includes a service component built into a short-term vacation. Don’t confuse it with a mission trip, which is a trip designed specifically to work on a charity project or spread the philosophy of a religious group, or with the Peace Corps, which offers an opportunity to live and volunteer abroad for extended periods of time. The idea behind a volunteer vacation is to give back to the community you are visiting while having fun and learning about the local culture.

This type of a meaningful summer getaway can be especially useful for teenagers. Imagine a real-life lab where teens are learning as well as contributing. Choose any topic of interest to plan your themed trip, including the environment, health, education, micro lending, crafts, firefighting, sports, animals or construction. Most organizations require no prior experience or special skills but may not admit children less than eight years old.

1. Learn the real culture

International travel provides the opportunity for a great learning experience, but if you only take group tours and do solely tourist activities, you never really learn about a place’s true culture. Volunteering makes you get out there and meet the locals, as well as talk to and work alongside them. When you are forced into a situation where you are interacting with the locals everyday, you start to pick up on their cultural nuances and understand their culture on a deeper level. The recipients also feel grateful for your contributions and may invite you to private dinners, family gatherings or festivals that you wouldn’t otherwise have access to.

2. Strengthen family bonds

Traveling is a family bonding experience, but doing projects while traveling builds a sense of teamwork. Kids of all ages can work together building homes in villages, sowing seeds at community farms, taking care of animals at sanctuaries or engaging street kids in sports. Grandparents, uncles and cousins who don’t get to spend time with each other outside the once-a-year Thanksgiving or Christmas get-together can hang out as well as feel good about making an impact.

3. Be a positive role model

When your kids see you working hard to build toilets for village schools versus sipping margaritas on the beach, they develop a deeper admiration for you. As a parent, you become a positive role model who encourages them to think beyond themselves and to lend a helping hand to the global community. You empower your kids to be responsible, compassionate and good global citizens by leading by example.

4. Prepare the leaders of tomorrow

Working abroad as a volunteer helps teach greater tolerance and understanding towards people from diverse cultural backgrounds, lifestyles, ages and income levels. It helps young people break down stereotypes at a young age and grow into responsible, caring leaders. According to certain studies, adults who volunteered as kids were twice as likely to be involved in community service as adults who did not. If you expose your kids to volunteering at a young age, they are likely to become contributing members of society and future change agents.

5. Get a break on your taxes

Many volunteer vacations are tax deductible. If you are traveling with a registered charitable organization and the main reason for your trip is to do volunteer work, you can deduct all or most of the expenses you incur. For a family taking an international trip, the savings can amount to thousands of dollars.

6. Leave a positive footprint

Going on a volunteer vacation as opposed to a regular one will always leave a positive footprint. When you depart a destination, you bequeath something of value to the locals that will help them in their future. Weather you teach English to women or bring smiles to the faces of little kids, it is certain that the impact of your visit is much more than the dollars you spend at the hotels and restaurants.

7. Build your teen’s resume

Any volunteer work adds value to college applications. Teens can draw references from their experiences of traveling internationally, seeing how people live in different parts of the world, and helping make a positive impact. It provides them with great content that is relevant in class discussions, interviews and term papers. It also boosts their confidence and social skills.

8. Make them appreciate what they have

Perhaps the greatest benefit of a volunteer vacation experience is making your teens appreciate the lives they have and halting the trap of overconsumption. Witnessing how the majority of the world’s population lives without 24-hour running water, electricity, down comforters and overstocked pantries is truly an eye-opening experience for which no textbook or documentary film can substitute. After making friends with others of a similar age who live with very little, they will probably not demand the latest electronic gadgets next Christmas!

Celebrate with us!

We are excited to announce that the PBS documentary on Globe Aware’s Cambodia program has received three Emmy Award nominations.

Produced by the good folks at Journeys for Good, the documentary is nominated for Best Cultural Program, Best Camera and Best Editing.

In December 2012, award-winning  husband and wife production team, Steve and Joanie Wynn, embarked on a volunteer adventure to Cambodia with non-profit Globe Aware.   They documented the experience for their public television series, "Journeys for Good", developed with KQED-TV and their San Francisco Bay Area production company, Bayside Entertainment.

Award winners will be announced June 15 – stay tuned!

Journeys for Good

Great profile of Globe Aware in the May 2014 edition of ‘Sky’, Delta Air Lines’ onboard magazine:

BREAK AWAY

Globe Aware: A voluntourism outfit for time-crunched travelers

BY LISA ROUNDS

While traveling for business in the late 1990s, Kimberly Haley-Coleman o en found herself in foreign countries with free time on her hands and a desire to see beyond the traditional tourist attractions. On one trip to Brazil, she remembers looking for short volunteer opportunities but could only and multiweek options.
"I found that so many people wanted the same thing I did, but once you' ve got kids, a mortgage and a busy lifestyle, you can' t go and take three weeks off," says the former global strategist and business development officer whose portfolio includes CNBC.com. "Everyone dreams of going into the Peace Corps, but that' s a two-and-a-half-year commitment."
In 2000, Haley-Coleman founded Globe Aware, a nonprofit specializing in weeklong service-inspired vacations around the world. Since then, the voluntourism movement has taken hold, and many other nonprofit and for-profit companies are offering shorter trips catering to busy Westerners with limited vacation days. Most of Globe Aware' s programs, now available in 15 countries, are built around a predetermined service project that can be finished in seven days. From installing concrete floors in the homes of Guatemalan single mothers to building wheelchairs for Cambodian land mine victims, participants spend 30 to 50 hours working in an immersive environment, with the option of visiting the area' s important attractions in their free time. But even the traditional tourist activities are designed to promote cultural awareness. Coffee-tasting in Costa Rica? Globe Aware arranges it with a family in their private home as opposed to in a factory.
"Our volunteers come away with a real under-standing of both the beauties and the challenges of a culture," says Haley-Coleman. "I would argue that' s more important than the physical projects we work on' being able to make that human connection and understand each other' s view of the world."
Globe Aware' s trips start around $1,100; globeaware.org

Self

Dallas-based nonprofit gives disadvantaged children opportunity for higher education

Dallas, TX April 23, 2014 –  Globe Aware, an internationally recognized leading international volunteer vacation organization, has built with its volunteers and local community members a school for disadvantaged youths in El Remate, Guatemala, its newest program site to date.

Globe Aware is a Dallas-based nonprofit organization that mobilizes teams of volunteers to carry out international service projects in 17 countries. The organization led over 90 North American volunteers in a week-long effort alongside locals from the community to build a kitchen and lunchroom area, concrete sports field, computer lab, a groundskeeper house, as well as improve bathroom facilities.

Recognizing that many buildings are erected without funds for staff, money was also raised to cover salaries for an initial period of three years. Materials and the building design were sourced locally to promote sustainability. Community involvement was high, ranging from volunteers working side by side with local students, teachers and parents, as well as enthusiastic community residents who gathered to play musical instruments at the work site, or bring meals to the volunteers.

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"We must accept our roles as global citizens and work in union to achieve a brighter tomorrow," said Kimberly Haley-Coleman, Executive Director of Globe Aware. "Through such service, and in this globalized world, we all learn solutions that benefit all involved, not the least of which is learning to create solutions in an environment of different cultural conditions. We look forward to working on many other projects to come as the communities further scope their needs."

The remote community, a half hour from Flores, suffers from poor nutrition, disease and lack of access to education, social services and basic infrastructure. Unlike more tourist-destination countries in Central America, such as Costa Rica, Guatemala has not yet seen significant investment trickle down to many of its communities. The average educational level of residents in El Remate hovers at 6th grade, and the new school will offer curriculums from 7th to 9th grade, increasing the educational level and opportunities offered in the community.

###

About Globe Aware (R).

Globe Aware(R) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit charity that mobilizes short term volunteer programs around the world. These adventures in service focus on promoting cultural awareness and sustainability and are often compared to a mini “Peace Corps” experience. All volunteers are accompanied by a bilingual volunteer coordinator to assist the volunteer throughout their program. The program fee and the airfare to get there are fully tax deductible to the full extent of the law. Globe Aware is a member of International Volunteer Programs Association, Volunteers for Prosperity, the Building Bridges Coalition and administers the President’s Volunteer Service Awards. Globe Aware is also in Consultative Status for United Nations Social and Economic Council.

Additionally, Globe Aware offsets its carbon emissions with Carbonfund.org, the country’s leading carbon offset organization. Its carbon footprint is estimated at less than 70 tons annually, and has chosen to support carbon-reducing projects in renewable energy to offset the CO2 that is produced in running our offices worldwide, from powering our offices to the transportation used to get to and from our work sites. This commitment places Globe Aware as an environmental leader in the volunteer abroad community and demonstrates proactive steps being taken in the fight against global climate change.

If you would like more information about this topic, or to schedule an interview with Globe Aware' s founder and Executive Director, Kimberly Haley-Coleman, please call Shanti Shahani at 214-824-4562 or e-mail Shanti@globeaware.org.