Socially Responsible “REALITY TOURS” to Afghanistan, China, Venezuela and Syria/Lebanon

Global Exchange offers travelers the opportunity to create people-to-people ties as they meet with human rights, environmental, and women’s groups; visit schools, health clinics, and Fair Trade cooperatives; and see important historical and cultural sites

Global Exchange is a San Francisco-based human rights organization
that believes travel can be educational, transformational and
positively influence international affairs. Since 1989, we have been
offering socially responsible “Reality Tours” that bring participants
to places that are hardly visited and often misunderstood by
Americans, including Cuba, Venezuela, Libya, China, Israel and
Palestine, South Africa, Syria and elsewhere. We offer travelers the
opportunity to learn first-hand about important social, economic,
political and environmental issues facing the people who live in those
countries. Our trips include visits to important cultural and
historical sites as well as meetings with women’s, human rights, and
environmental groups and tours of hospitals, schools, and Fair Trade
cooperatives. Following are some of our exciting upcoming destinations:

*Afghanistan: Women Making Change, March 5-14, 2006
As Americans focus our attention on the war in Iraq, the situation in
Afghanistan goes largely unnoticed. Our trip participants learn about
the important role women are playing in public life in Afghanistan,
including fundamental tasks like sustaining peace, restoring
Afghanistan’s crumbled infrastructure, developing educational
institutions and repairing damaged cultural treasures. They meet with
women politicians and judges, explore Afghanistan’s rich cultural
heritage, and visit NGOs that run girls schools and provide micro
loans to women-run small businesses. For details, see
www.globalexchange.org/tours/695.html

*Venezuela: A New Vision for the Americas, April 8-19, 2006
Most Americans know little about what’s happening in Venezuela, a
country whose president is called a tyrant and dictator by some, but
who enjoys the highest approval rating of any president in Latin
America. Global Exchange’s delegations to Venezuela reveal that the
country is undergoing a remarkable transformation that is improving
the lives of millions of people. For the first time, millions of
Venezuelans have access to education, job training, housing, land,
clean water, and health care. During our trips to Venezuela,
participants meet with human rights activists, rural agricultural
workers, labor unions, community activists, journalists, and
government officials as well as opposition figures. They visit
educational and health care programs in urban areas and meet with
coffee farmers in the Andes mountains. For details, see
http://www.globalexchange.org/tours/715.html

*China: Beyond “Made in China,” April 10-22, 2006
China is full of contradictions. The booming economy has lifted
several hundred million people out of poverty, yet inequality has
worsened. Rapid economic growth has made China a serious global
competitor with the United States, yet that economic success has also
produced severe environmental problems. There is now a significant
middle class, but the government is not ready to give this educated
class the kinds of political freedoms that educated people usually
expect. Global Exchange’s Reality Tour to China explores these issues
through meetings with intellectuals, workers, students, farmers, small
businesspeople, and a growing class of nongovernmental organizations
(NGOs) that holds great promise for the future of Chinese democracy.
Participants visit Beijing, Shanghai, the beautiful mountainous Yunnan
Province, and several Tibetan and Naxi ethnic minority villages. For
more information, see http://www.globalexchange.org/tours/644.html

*Syria and Lebanon: Crossroads of the Middle East, April 14-28, 2006
Lebanon and Syria have been in the news almost every week this year,
but few Americans have traveled there and had the opportunity to
understand the politics, people, history and culture of these two
amazing countries. Our trip participants examine the fallout from the
assassination of ex-Prime Minister Rafik Hariri by meeting with
leaders of various political and religious groups. They learn about
the Israeli-Arab conflict by visiting with Palestinian refugees living
in camps and traveling to areas formerly occupied by Israel in
southern Lebanon and the Golan Heights. The tour also includes visits
to important historical and cultural sites such as the 800 year-
old “Krak Des Chevaliers” crusader castle in Syria; the famous Cedars
of Lebanon; and the Old City in Damascus. Details at
http://www.globalexchange.org/tours/691.html

For a full list of Global Exchange’s trips to these destinations and
others, see http://www.globalexchange.org/tours/byCountry.html We
welcome travel writers to join us on these trips at cost. Please
contact us for more information.

November 22, 2005   Posted in: Afghanistan