by GBP | Dec 1, 2015 | Cause, Connect, Givebackpackers, Shop, Travel
I do not believe in Black Friday and I do not believe in Cyber Monday. Today is #GivingTuesday but I believe every day should be a Giving Day. Givebackpackers was not started to sell the world more stuff. It was started on the idea of connecting purpose driven travelers and good causes to the resources they need to do more good in the world. We first introduced the concept of selling handmade goods from around the world after I had some success selling Mexican artisan accessories on Krissy’s etsy shop to raise money for Door of Faith Orphanage in Baja. On our trip around the world last year we collected the most amazing handmade things along the way and began selling them online and at markets and events. It was a lot of work to keep that much inventory organized and to physically manage all of it. I quickly realized the idea of selling stuff did not align with my values and my mission to create meaningful experiences that made an impact. Earlier this summer Krissy and I parted ways as business partners. She kept the stuff and started a new company, Twin Peaks Apparel and the Givebackpackers got back to what we do best, travel! We have made two different trips to Nicaragua, where we are funding a clean water well in a rural village and sponsoring a school with supplies, security, playground equipment and seriously needed upgrades to the school. Each trip had about 5 volunteers from all backgrounds, with the shared goal of traveling with a purpose. (We made plenty of time for fun adventures like...
by GBP | May 4, 2015 | Cause, Givebackpackers, Shop
In Wake of the Quake – Giving back 100% of Nepal Shawl Purchases to Disaster Relief Over 6,000 people have died since the Nepal earthquake on April 25th 2015 — among the lost lives was a friend and fellow crusader of compassion, Dan Fredinburg –who was trekking Mount Everest at the time. My heart aches for the aftermath of the Nepal Quake. There are 3 million people in need of food aid. 130,000 homes have been destroyed 415 million needed for humanitarian relief We could wake up tomorrow and be faced with the same kind of nightmare. Your home, your neighborhood, your community, your life, your loves….just a pile of debris. Your prayers would in a second become the same as the victims of Nepal. No place is immune from natural disasters. We have teamed up with Givebackpacker, Derek Smith in efforts to make a difference in the lives and communities that are struggling from this recent earthquake. While Derek was traveling around Nepal this April the Neupane Family whom reside in the tiny village of Karmidanda in Rasuwa district of Nepal opened their home and hearts to him. The quake has crumbled the life they have worked so hard to build. Derek purchased an array of handmade colorful shawls from his journey through India and has now donated the beautiful shawls to our givebackpackers global online marketplace to help raise funding for this emergency. Each shawl is delicate and has either an OM, a Ganesh or a Buddha design on them. They can be worn around the head, around the neck as a scarf, shoulders as a shawl or...
by GBP | Mar 25, 2015 | Cause, Givebackpackers
“I really believe that people can tackle far more than they think they can” – Scott Every day the rising sun brings new beginnings, an opportunity to redefine yourself. I get jazzed up at the mere thought of it. Envisioning all the possibilities, the ways we can grow and create. The ways we can change our colors like karma karma karma chameleons. Our ability to adapt & flow is monumental in our success & evolution. A stunning example of this is the Superwoman of Sleeping-Bags and my Woman Crush Wednesday, Veronika Scott. Veronika Scott founded, The Empowerment Plan, which is a Detroit based Non-profit that employs and supports the homeless community of 20,000 people. Scott creates sustainable solutions to help break the cycle of poverty along with renewing hope by hiring, training and providing work for women struggling on the streets to make her amazing Sleeping Bag Coat. Talk about Feel Good Fashion!!! Scott’s goal is to, “give them the power to take control of the life they want to lead”. I am so inspired by her unwavering perseverance and her ability to stay positive in the face of discouraging words that were yelled at her by one woman in the homeless community. “Your coats don’t matter, jobs matter. We need jobs, not coats”, instead of letting it get her down, Veronika realized the woman was right and this sparked her idea to hire homeless woman to make the Sleeping Bag Coats. Brilliant! Lindsay and I resonated strongly with what Scott is building in the world and the adversity that she has faced growing up as a child of...
by GBP | Jan 21, 2015 | Cause, Connect, Travel
Build Your Future Tomorrow Center is one of those organizations that make you go, WOW, this is how it should be done. They provide a full range of services and support to communities affected by extreme poverty. BFT Center is dedicated to providing Cambodian people with the right intellectual and economic tools to be self sufficient. Their vision is built upon two beliefs: Knowledge is Hope & Peace is Development While we were in Siem Reap, we met with Mr. Sedtha Long, the founder of BFT and a survivor of the Khmer Rouge, one of the worst genocides in human history. Like most children at that time, he was taken from his family and enslaved, forced to work from 5am to midnight on very little to survive. After torturous years, and losing many of his family members he managed to escape to the Thai border, and start a life in the refugee camps. https://givebackpackers.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Build-Your-Future-Today-Center.-14-September-20131.mp4 Being one of the few educated survivors, he started development work in the camps, assisting many orphaned children. He started teaching in the camps, along with educating western volunteers about Cambodian culture & issues, something he continues to practice today. He also started bringing in Buddhist monks & nuns to help people deal with crisis issues and understand morality even in such demanding times. He even took on Thai kick-boxing, crossing the border to compete and earn money to bring back to the camps. Once the civil war was over and people were allowed to return to Cambodian cities, he realized his primary goal in life had been defined by the struggle inflicted on...
by GBP | Jan 21, 2015 | Cause, Connect
We have done a lot of philanthropic projects abroad because we believe in being more than tourists, we want to do more than just take photos and enjoy the sights, and our money and efforts can go a lot further, but Givebackpackers are GLOBAL, which means we volunteer right in our own communities in need too. Last Saturday Lindsay, Tiffany and Corinne were helping these teens from the Access Youth Academy program at the Mt Hope Community Garden in San Diego. Giving back starts at home. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XLiSDKxurA&w=560&h=315] Corinne Aparis is the Academic Coordinator at Access Youth Academy and joined in November 2013 after moving back from India where she was working with a non profit for 8 months. Originally from San Diego, she pursued her undergraduate degrees in English and International Development at the University of San Francisco in 2010. Throughout Corinne’s time in university and post-grad she worked and did fellowships in South Africa, Uganda, Australia, and India where she supported and coordinated a multitude of social change projects for at-risk youth to immigrant and refugee families. Corinne is a world traveler who lives the givebackpacker lifestyle, make a positive impact wherever she goes, whether it is out in the surf on her home turf beach, giving sage advice to her very lucky girlfriends, or while trekking through jungles and sneaking across borders in the Congo. To support either of these local programs, please visit the sites below, or make a much needed donation of funds or working laptops, as the kids in Corinne’s programs desperately need computers to do their homework and apply for scholarships....
by GBP | Jan 21, 2015 | Cause, Connect, Travel
www.TheBlogAbroad.com Traveling is truly an amazing concept. Not many other things in life can leave you speechless, yet turn you into a storyteller. But traveling does just that and more, depending on your attitude and aptitude to let it make an imprint greater than just the stamp in your passport. From a year’s worth of travel, I went from a passport of pages to a passport of purpose, as the stamps throughout my 15 countries of exploration decorated the empty spaces, silently singing the stories of spontaneous adventures, life-changing encounters, and the ever-lasting impact the people from other cultures had on me. But the biggest thing I had to learn was how to be a traveler and not a tourist. The minute you master this, the floodgates of opportunity and discovery will open for you, because there’s a special component to traveling with purpose that changes the way you see and approach life. Try and create unique experiences by going outside the norm to visit places under the radar. Not to mention breaking out of your shell by trying to speak the language and exchanging perspectives and cultural views with locals. As a global citizen, your duty is to enrich this world. People need you. We need you. I need you — to continue to push the agenda for the uniquely-born, free-spirited, adventure-junkies who eat bowls of pride and courage for breakfast every morning. With a side of bacon. Traveling is what I love to do. And when you love something enough, you find a way to make a living out of it. But money alone won’t fund...
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