Lending a Hand

Over the years, I’ve been fortunate enough to not only travel all over the world taking tours, but to have been able to both observe and work on development projects in India, Pakistan and Bhutan.

While I was on the national board of Save the Children NZ I visited SCNZ projects in Pakistan and a community development project in southern India. I was also very privileged to carry out a short-term writing contract for the Aga Khan Development Network in two of Pakistan’s most challenging provinces, Sind and Baluchistan.

Any kind of world travel soon brings home to you how fortunate we are to live in NZ and I believe, that with that, comes a responsibility to help people who are, through no fault of their own, not nearly so blessed with the basics of life that we often take for granted.

Increasingly too, all of us who travel are so aware of the impact long-haul flights have on our planet and the negative impacts that can come from tourism.

It is not so easy for us to simply hop on a train to visit another country as it is for people living in, for example Europe. So, I don’t pretend to have the answer to this yet but I am striving to do the following:

1. Avoid the use of domestic flights while on tour wherever possible and try to use more rail travel wherever possible.
2. Continue to actively support and visit an increasing number of locally-driven and organised community and environmental projects in the countries we visit. This does not directly impact on our carbon footprint when travelling but it provides a direct way we can work in partnership with the people we meet.
3. Try to support locally or nationally-owned accommodation and transport providers rather than large multi-national companies so that my tours provide as much direct benefit to local people as possible.

Projects Jill Worrall Tours has supported include:

• A new water tank for an isolated coastal village in Colombia
• Financial help for a Colombian wildlife guide to improve his English.
• Money raised to help buy books for a community library in Lusaka, Zambia.
• Donations to help provide solar power for a Buddhist spiritual retreat centre in Bhutan.
• Tree-planting in Bhutan.
• Sponsorship for young women in Northern Pakistan to attend tertiary education.
• Financial help for Syrian guides after the war in Syria.
• Assistance for Saharan guide from Niger following Libyan revolution.
• $11,000 for the Forgotten Sherpas of Nepal Trust.