By Marty Logan
MONTREAL, Jul 24 (IPS) - "Visit Otavalo (two hours north of Quito): indigenous political and cultural stronghold. Meet with indigenous organisations, visit polluting and labour abusing flower plantations, shop at the amazing Saturday market."
For some people, this is a holiday of sorts, one with a social mission. For 16 travellers from the United States, it is the plan for one day in a "reality tour" that includes participating in the first Social Forum of the Americas, which starts Sunday in Quito, Ecuador.
Organised by the U.S. human rights organisation Global Exchange, the 16 travellers will attend the six-day forum and then visit activists and local communities in a bid to enhance what they learn at the event's workshops with the view "from the ground."
The tour participants, who range in age from 15 to in their 60s, will also meet with environmental activists concerned about a pipeline project and then with representatives of a petroleum company in the South American nation.
"It's important to understand what the corporate plans are," says Malia Everette de la Campa, director of Reality Tours for the San Francisco-based Global Exchange.
In an interview she explains that a tour to the Social Forum meshes with the 15-year- old organisation's goal to examine the impacts of globalisation and U.S. foreign policy on the developing world.
"No matter how much fun (the trips) are, they're always meant to be educational," she says. A typical day includes a morning learning programme, another one in the afternoon and in the evening either a 'low day' or 'high day' activity, the former a cultural event, the latter a lecture, talk or similar formal learning activity.
In 2003, more than 2,000 people participated in the group's 149 international tours, more than 100 of them to Cuba, Global Exchange's most popular destination. Those numbers will change this year after the administration of President George W. Bush clamped down on people-to-people exchanges between the United States and the Caribbean nation, adds Everette de la Campa.
Global Exchange has also organised "witness" projects to document the impacts of the U.S. war on Iraq from the ground; it co-founded Occupation Watch, whose goal is to "look at infringements of human rights by the U.S. (in Iraq) and try to build capacity and support the capacity for Iraqis to monitor that themselves," she says.
The organisation is also a founding member of United for Peace and Justice, an anti-war coalition of 800 U.S. groups.
Over 10,000 people will attend more than 300 activities scheduled at the Americas Social Forum, part of the World Social Forum (WSF), an annual gathering of activists organised in reaction to the yearly World Economic Forum (WEF), a meeting of the planet's political and economic elite.
The motto of the WSF, which met in India earlier this year and will return to its roots in Brazil in 2005, is "another world is possible."
Participants in Global Exchange tours want to see this world first-hand, says Everette de la Campa, although they have a wide range of motivations when they approach the organisation. Some are not comfortable travelling alone; others teach English to immigrants and want to know more about the their students' homelands; but all decide at some point, "I really want to go with Global Exchange because I don't want it to be just a holiday," she adds.
"I went to Rio in March to get an inside look at one of the largest movements in Latin America -- 'Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra' (Landless Workers Movement), but came away with much more than facts and figures," writes one former participant on the group's website, offering web links to photographs of the trip.
"We stayed in Tijuana, and during our stay we visited factories ('maquiladoras'), talked to local activists, heard about environmental problems in the area, and looked at illegal immigration and the current U.S. programme to curb the flow," wrote another.
"And all that we did was really focused on globalisation and how the increasing interaction between our nations is impacting Mexicans who live along our shared border," she adds.
Returned participants have given lectures, written articles, and launched websites to share their experiences with others; many have raised funds for communities or development projects that they visited, according to Everette de la Campa.
"We always hope that people come back and get active, but realistically some people have more time on their hands than others."
International travellers spent 476 billion dollars in 2000, according to the World Tourism Organisation. Social tourism, also known as responsible or eco-tourism, is a growing arm of the booming global tourism industry.
What makes "reality tourists" different, says Everette de la Campa, is they travel internationally to get a local view of life in the developing world. "We get them out to the real communities...it's really different when you go there and actually talk to a 'campesino' (farmer) and see how they live."
***** +Americas Social Forum (http://www.forosocialamericas.org/index.phtml.en) +Global Exchange (http://www.globalexchange.org/tours/) +Traveller's Code for Travelling Responsibly (http://www.pirt.org/travelcode.html) +United for Peace and Justice (http://www.unitedforpeace.org)
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