At Spirit Quest we know the good that travel can bring to the entire human community. But these benefits aren’t all necessarily automatic - so we’re working to support the causes we feel strongly about, and we’d like to invite you to join us. In addition to working to eliminate our "carbon footprint" we also support a children's charity project in every country/region that we travel to.
Carbon Offsetting
Our travel activities create carbon emmissions which contribute to global warming. To offset these we donate to Carbon Fund.org (http://www.carbonfund.org/site/) who then contribute to renewable energy, energy efficiency, and reforestation projects.
We donating to offset the impact of your land travel (hotel, bus, etc.). We invite you to join us by offsetting your air travel: the cost of offsetting varies by trip (for example it’s only $46.39 to offset a roundtrip flight from Los Angeles to Denpasar, Bali). Just look for that option on the "Make a Payment" page for your trip.
SOS Children's Villages
SOS Children's Villages is the world's largest orphan charity (http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk). The charity began working in Egypt in 1977, building its first SOS Children's Village in Cairo, established on a hilly site in the residential area of Heliopolis, on the north-eastern edge of the city. The village has 33 family houses and there is also a large nursery school, which is open to children from the local community as well as from the children's village. Alongside the village are two SOS Youth Homes, where adolescents live whilst undertaking vocational training or further education, under the guidance of a youth leader who helps them on the first steps to independence.
The SOS Children's Village Alexandria opened in 1980, close to the sea about 30km outside the city. It has 11 family houses and two youth houses and, like Cairo, a nursery which children from the local community also attend. Bungalows at the children's village provide summer holiday accommodation for children from the other SOS Children's Villages in Egypt.
The charity set up its third Egyptian village in 1984 in a suburb of Tanta, the capital of the province of Gharbia in the centre of the Nile Delta. SOS Children's Village Tanta has 12 family houses which are home to over 100 children. There is also a nursery and a youth house, and the children from the village attend the local schools.
We make contributions to the SOS Children's Villages in the memory of Tom Corben France (10 May 1995 - 08 September 2007) who traveled with us to Egypt in 2002.