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.

Contact:
Malia Everette
Global Exchange
(415) 575-5520
andrea@globalexchange.org