Description

Open only to returning students and available by application only, Tribal Issues is a challenging look at the issues facing young men and women in tribal areas in Southeast Asia. Unlike any other Rustic Pathways program, Tribal Issues will take you into remote areas of Thailand, Burma, and Laos and give you first-hand insight into the issues facing your local peers. David Venning, the Chairman and Founder of Rustic Pathways, will lead you on this powerful journey. Through first-hand interviews, you will identify the issues facing these young people, the factors that led to their compromised situations, and the possible solutions that could ameliorate or solve their problems. Suited only for students comfortable with remote travel, deeply interested in learning about and helping improve the lives of others, and able to understand and deal with very adult issues, Tribal Issues is a bold program for young people who are deeply committed to learning about and improving their world.

BACKGROUND
In 2009, Eli Rivkin, an experienced Rustic Pathways traveler deeply committed to community service and moved by his travels in Asia, suggested a program designed to conduct first-hand interviews in the most remote areas of Southeast Asia in an effort to identify what was really happening with people his own age in these largely unvisited tribal areas. Working together, Eli and the Chairman of Rustic Pathways developed a program called Sharing Bowls of Sticky Rice, which was offered to select returning Rustic Pathways students and a few exceptional new students with a specific interest in this subject. The trip that ran was extremely successful and has now been renamed Tribal Issues. Eli and several other students from that first group will return in 2011 and future years as part of a long-term research project based around the issues uncovered in the first survey.

WHO YOU MEET
During this program you will travel into tribal areas far off the beaten track and talk with your local peers. Our 2010 program held meetings with young people from eleven very diverse ethnic groups across three countries. We slept overnight in a refugee camp and spent hours with Karen refugee high school students who were living without adequate clothing or school materials, met with a young Akha man without access to medical care trying to help his dying mother, talked to a Shan prostitute who was working to support an elderly family back home, chatted with a group of orphans struggling to legally establish their identities, interviewed Tai Yai children who had fled violence in their traditional homeland and walked for several months to seek refuge elsewhere, met with a group of Lahu students who hiked five hours to school each week in a village that has no access to clean water, talked with young monks who left home at six years old to join a monastery in hopes of gaining an education and had not seen their parents for more than ten years, met with a young Khamu hunter whose handmade rifle had exploded and killed his friend, and spoke with very young mothers struggling to raise children without any access to medical care or modern technologies. This sampling of the 2010 interviews is indicative of what you should expect from your trip.

WHAT YOU DO
This trip is all about meeting and learning from young men and women in the real settings where they live. This means traveling into very rugged and remote areas, moving by four-wheel drive and, in some cases, chartered aircraft, getting dirty and wet, and often bearing the weight of tremendous sadness and seeing real tragedy. With each person we meet, we will try to share a meal or, at the very least, a few cups of tea or coffee and some snacks. Our discussions with local people are usually held in a question-and-answer format where you ask questions and take notes on the answers.

WHAT YOU ACHIEVE
During your trip you will not only listen to the issues and problems impacting your tribal peers in these remote areas, but you will also talk about how you can help. Where we can, we will do something to either directly help or try to address the root problems. During our 2010 trip we gave away blankets, dictionaries, and several thousand dollars worth of food in remote areas. We also met and subsequently sponsored two young Akha orphans and funded their education so they could return to school. Medicine for a number of people who were sick was supplied, palliative care arranged for a dying woman, English tutors arranged for students trying to climb out of poverty and gain an education, and three bicycles bought and delivered for students to use to attend school. We also supplied clothing to very poor students and gave away almost 1,000 bars of soap and an equal number of cans of sardines, toothbrushes, tubes of toothpaste, pens, rulers, erasers, and notebooks. By the conclusion of the trip and in a spontaneous act of kindness by our students, we sponsored a total of nine Hill Tribe orphans to attend school, paying for their food, clothing, school fees, books, and accommodation.

Before you sign up for this trip, please read the program description carefully. Read the comments from the group of students who went before you and consider how rugged this journey is and the seriousness of what you will encounter.

Highlights

DELVE deep into the issues that your peers in remote tribal areas of Southeast Asia face and learn about their lives, the difficult situations they often face, and their hopes for a brighter future.

INTERVIEW tribal youth and hear remarkable stories of hardship and courage that will illuminate the issues in this region of the world and give you first-hand insight into local people's situations and how you might help.

MAKE A DIFFERENCE in the lives of the people you meet.

TRAVEL with David Venning, the Chairman and Founder of Rustic Pathways. He has been exploring these remote areas for years and has many friends and local contacts who will open up doors normally closed to outsiders.

MEET like-minded Rustic Pathways students who are committed to community service and cross-cultural understanding.

Qualifications

Students must be 16-years old and up to participate on the program. Additionally, participants must submit an application through the Rustic Pathways website and complete the appropriate documents before traveling on the program.

Type of Programs

• Community Service / Volunteerism
• Cultural Exploration

Languages

• English
• Thai

Cost in US$:

USD 3,695 + 660 Internal Airfare

Cost Includes:

• Travel while in host country
• Housing
• Food
• Excursions
• Pre-departure orientation/Training
• In-country orientation/Training
• In-country staff support
• Written materials pre-departure
• Written materials abroad

Program Fees Include:

The above cost includes all ground transportation in-country, 3 meals a day, housing, staff through the duration of the program, all supplies for the volunteer projects and all excursions on the program itinerary not listed as optional.

Experience Required

no

Volunteer Types

This Program is open to

Worldwide Participants.

Participants Travel

in Groups

Application Process Involves

• Online Application plus Application Assessment

Typically The Application Process Time is

1-2 business days

Rustic Pathways's Mission Statement

Rustic Pathways is a pioneer in providing superior quality travel and service programs for students and families in some of the world's most welcoming countries. Rustic Pathways demands professionalism and integrity across all of its operations, insists on quality in all aspects of its programs, and places the safety of its students above all other considerations. We enrich the lives of our students and our staff, benefit the parts of the world we serve, and build cultural bridges that lead to greater global understanding and cooperation.

Year Founded

1983