Promoting responsible travelling. Have you ever been abroad? If so, we bet you have some interesting travel stories to tell! You can share your experience with people who want to go places you’ve been in and help them to prepare themselves for their travel.

Look at EcoBurma project – it is a Czech project which aims at promoting responsible travelling to Burma – the Asian country. What is responsible travelling? It is travelling that respects human rights and foreign culture; that promotes the idea of transparent business and an equitable income for small businesses; that preserves the nature.

The EcoBurma project is based on three rules:

• Empower locals in Burma to help them identify issues related to tourism and give them strength to defend their rights.
• Contribute Stories – everyone who has ever been to Burma can upload his or her story to the www.ecoburma.com webstie.
• Own Your Choices.

According to the organizers: “The discussion as to whether foreigners should travel to Burma or not dates back to at least the 1990s. What triggered our latest activities related to the issue of traveling is not so much the 2010 elections that consolidated previous power structures under a democratic guise, but the growing understanding that tourism is a tool that, if properly deployed, can bring about change.

Most approaches to responsible travel focus on the “First World” side only, trying to change the behavior of tourists and the products offered by tour operators. We are following a different path by capitalizing on the fact that storytelling is a universal skill, as old as humankind, that forms the core of all cultures. To this we add a good portion of capacity building because we believe that the empowerment of the people in developing countries is crucial for them to be able to engage with us on the same level.” (Source: http://www.ecoburma.com/about/).

Who are the e-volunteers?

After having established the project, our main volunteers are former travelers to Burma who want to support responsible travels.

Whom do they address their activity to? Who is the recipient?

1. The general public, especially travelers, alternative tour operators to Burma with a focus on

ethical travels and media.

2. Individuals and civil society organizations in and from Burma.

Name of organization: Burma Center Prague

Project title: EcoBurma

Project website:www.ecoburma.com