Making The World A Better Place

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The Travel Corporation – parent company of such leading travel industry brands as Trafalgar, Insight and Contiki – is lending a helping hand to an organization known for providing a helping hand, reports Ian Stalker in this week’s digital edition of Travel Courier.

ME to WE, which, among other things, sends people to Third World countries to do volunteer work such as building schools, has notched a global partnership with The Travel Corporation, which will see TravCorp help the charity have a greater international reach as it works to deliver aid that company co-founder Marc Kielburger calls a “hand up verses a handout.”

The Travel Corporation CEO Brett Tollman told Travel Courier during a recent Toronto event that his company will now be promoting ME to WE’s volunteer trips to Kenya, Ecuador and India on some of its brands’ websites and in their brochures, although those wanting to actually book an excursion will have to do so through ME to WE’s web site, which also sells various products and accepts straight up donations.

Tollman says the partnership won’t bring any financial benefits to The Travel Corporation, adding that the partnership is “purely altruistic.”

ME to WE is an offshoot of WE Charity (formerly Free the Children), specially designed as a “for-profit social enterprise” to support the charity, which began when Kielburger’s brother Craig was moved by a story about child labour on the Indian Sub-Continent in 1995 when he was 12.

The Canadian-born siblings and human rights advocates have since built the innovative development charity and youth empowerment movement into an international goliath that operates programs in 10,000 schools in Canada, the US, and UK, and has attracted supporters ranging from idealistic students to high-profile celebrities as diverse as Al Gore and Justin Bieber.

For the full story, check out this week’s digital edition of Travel Courier by clicking here.