The Hindu Business Line : Tan and be a good Samaritan

Typical holiday options they are not, yet they attract thousands of American travellers to India, Nepal, China and other parts of Asia every year. Over the last decade, the number of organisations - both non-profit and commercial - offering this form of eco-tourism, a combination of tourism and public service, has grown exponentially as more and more people sign on to do good while getting a tan.

The International Eco-tourism Society defines eco-tourism as "responsible travel to natural areas, which conserves the environment and sustains the well-being of local people." It is generally considered a segment of the larger nature tourism market which, according to 1998 estimates by the World Tourism Organisation, accounts for approximately 20 per cent of total international travel. While tourism overall is growing at an annual rate of four per cent, nature travel is growing at between 10 per cent and 30 per cent.

Volunteer vacations, where travellers are assigned specific tasks designed to improve conditions in the local community, were born in 1920 at the initiative of Service Civil International, a pacifist group, to rebuild bombed cities. The industry was formally founded in 1980, when a Minnesota state legislator and his wife, Bud Philbrook and Michelle Gran, established Global Volunteers.

Today, about 2,000 Americans go abroad every year from Global Volunteers alone; the US industry accounts for more than 7,000 volunteers. Their activities range from collecting geological samples in the Himalayas to tracking medicinal herbs in the rain forests to providing health care services in Africa. Eco-tourism is especially important in developing nations," said Fergus McLaren, director of the International Year of Eco-tourism programme for 2002 coordinated by the United Nations Development Programme. "It provides additional funds and jobs at the local level, where they are needed most."

`Feel-good vacationing', as it is sometimes referred to, is becoming more popular, partly because baby boomers in the US now have the time, the resources and the desire to give something back to society. The spiritual heritage of Asia is also a draw for older volunteers, noted Jodie Emmett, a programme coordinator with Cross-Cultural Solutions, a non-profit based in New Rochelle, New York.

Recently, two other demographic groups also have helped drive the industry: wealthy young `dotcomers' who are rethinking their goals, and second-generation Asian-Americans who want to learn more of their roots. "I wanted to gain some perspective on life," said Tom Sperry, a 28-year-old former dotcomer, who spent several months in 1999 at an orphanage in Porur near Chennai on a Global Volunteers programme. "I decided there was nothing more opposite to what I did than leaving my cushy life and living in an orphanage in a village in India."

Younger second-generation volunteers are fascinated by the culture, Emmett said, "as there's more and more incorporation of it into mainstream American culture".

Typically, the organisations work with the community and non-governmental organisations in the area. Teams of volunteers, who are usually briefed over the phone, go year-round and work toward specific goals. Local staffers help organise transportation, meals and leisure activities.

Volunteers tend to skew slightly older, said Quyen Tran, an organiser at Global Volunteers, based in St. Paul, Minnesota. Volunteers are also willing to spend more than general tourists, and tend to travel as couples or in groups, with families or friends. A significant number are current or retired educators, who welcome the chance to teach; about 70 per cent are women, and 30 to 40 per cent are returning volunteers who go on to other locations, or return to the same location. There's a lot of opportunity for nurturing, maybe that is why there are more women," Tran said.

Volunteers have sometimes been criticised for lacking critical skills and for spending too much time getting acclimatised; others doubt if going briefly to swing a hammer or teach English makes a difference. But organisers argue that volunteering internationally is very different from pitching in locally at a community centre. "You have to get used to the culture, overcome language barriers, and build relationships," Emmett said. "Besides, there are the challenges of working in the developing world. For the average traveller who's grown up in the US, India is a big shock."

"Travelling to and working in some areas - like Nepal - requires a big investment financially, physically and emotionally," added Michael Sandy of Amizade, which has created healthcare and education initiatives in the Kumbhu region in Nepal, now postponed to May 2002 following the royal family killings last June. "There are not many comforts - there's only a rare occasion to take a full shower."

Global Volunteers operates a relatively comfortable project at the Dazzling Stone orphanage in Porur near Chennai. The project, established in 1994, entails healthcare, nurturing and teaching English to the more than 100 students, aged 3 to 16 years. Teams, comprising 10 to 15 members, visit on three-week stints. Volunteers pay $2,095 for a three-week programme and $1,995 for a two-week programme; students pay $1,895 for the three-week programme. The fee is tax-deductible, and covers food, lodging, ground transportation and programme material, but does not include air fare or visa.

Volunteers stay in a furnished house near the orphanage; "while comfortable, it is not for the faint-hearted", Tran said. The experience brings up unexpected challenges - like dealing with head lice in children - and sometimes leads to major life changes, as in the case of Tom Sperry.

Sperry, who lives in Portland, Oregon, first went to India in October 1999; when he returned, he quit his job, and went back to India a few months later. Sperry, whose previous acts of charity had consisted of donating money and old clothes, tutored the kids - they spoke broken English, and he learned some Tamil - and took them on day trips, introduced them to the Internet, and learned to play cricket and Diwali customs.

It was not all fun and games; Sperry said he was completely unprepared for the conditions in India and at the orphanage. "When you get off the plane, it's 95 degrees F with 99 per cent humidity," he said. "And the kids are destitute - not just poor in the sense that they don't have cable TV. I was ready to cry, ready to leave."

Sperry changed his mind in five minutes, and now keeps in touch with his friends in India, and has persuaded his mother and his niece to sponsor a child each at the orphanage. "The huge impact on my life is beyond description," he said. "I went there thinking I was going to help these kids, but they helped me in more ways than I could have ever imagined."

Examples such as these convince organisations that the service itself is only a part of the mission; the larger goal is for volunteers to share their experience, create more globally-aware US citizens, build friendships between communities, and develop a more positive image of America. "Volunteers, too, come into these programmes with different goals," Emmett said. "It's more complex than how many children you feed."

With so many Americans currently unwilling to travel to parts of Asia - international travel overall has fallen by at least 30 per cent - eco-tourism is suffering significantly. At the same time, in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, there may be an even greater impetus to make a difference. "Given the recent events, it's all the more important to understand more about other countries," said Brad Choyt, who directs programmes for Where There Be Dragons, Inc., and leads groups of students, aged 16 to 21 years, on 6-week and 12-week programmes in Northern India, Ladakh, Nepal and Central Tibet. "I want the students to get a different perspective, and develop good habits," said Choyt, who developed the India programme, and has been here a dozen times. The students volunteer in schools and in a leprosy clinic, and also study themes such as the impact of River Ganges on the local community.

Shruti Bajaj, who went to India last July on a Cross-Cultural Solutions programme, gained a new perspective on her own Indian identity. Cross-Cultural has two service programmes in India, in Himachal Pradesh and in Delhi; a three-week programme is priced at $2,100. The Delhi programme is nearly seven years old; volunteers work with NGOs, women's organisations and public health services. About 750 volunteers, from an 18-year-old to an 80-year-old, have gone to India so far, said Emmett, the programme coordinator. Of them, at least 30 per cent are second-generation immigrants, who wanted to get in touch with their roots, like Bajaj, a 27-year-old engineer in San Francisco.

Bajaj volunteered at a school in Himachal Pradesh, where she taught arts and crafts, with four other volunteers, to over 100 children. She had travelled to India many times before, but all she did then "was eat and visit family", she said. Having been raised in the US, Bajaj had only learned about her culture from her parents; through Cross-Cultural, she got a chance to learn it first-hand and incorporate some of those values into her life, she said.

Eight decades after the first volunteer vacation, Bajaj's experience in a ramshackle school in northern India was perhaps not that different from that of rebuilding bombed European cities.

(The writer is based in New York City.)

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