Something different at last

“I am investigating the possibilities of creating awareness of non -malignant palliative issues among various communities and to encourage community participation, and would like some ideas and advice. Thank you very much”

Not many travel companies receive enquiries that are unrelated to holiday planning! Especially something like the one above. This was a message The Blue Yonder team received from a pathologist in South Africa recently. For TBY, this is a proof of what an impact a maturing relationship between two social enterprises can create. One- working to spread the community owned palliative care to rest of the world (Institute of Palliative Medicine) and the other- a sustainable tourism operator using tourism as a tool to bring attention of the world to successful and inspiring initiatives like Kozhikode model of Palliative care (The Blue Yonder).

TBY is not into palliative care. But what they are attempting to provide is a platform for domestic and international travelers to experience the unique model of community owned palliative care which the The Economist Intelligent report had called “a beacon of hope.

They believe that if they are able to inspire even one person or organization to replicate this in her town or country, the endeavour will be successful. The engagement between The Blue Yonder and The Palliative Care movement is deep and multi-faceted.

Here a few areas where this engagement is maturing well. It’s a small step towards ‘Creating better places for people to live and people to visit.’

The Blue Yonder runs workshops for IPM volunteers to other social engagements that they could participate. Some of the ideas that these workshops generated caused the ‘Students in palliative care’ to apply for Change looms awards, which they subsequently won.

Concern Without Borders is an initiative that grew out of the experience of the Palliative Care movement in Kerala in training and involving over 30,000 volunteers to care for the incurably ill. The Pain and Palliative Care Society which initiated this movement now aims to expand its reach and the network of volunteers to replicate this model of the community network in Kerala to other parts of India and the world. TBY is a part of the team that conceptualised this idea and will be closely involved in its rollout.

The Blue Yonder is currently exploring opportunities with UK based vocational skill development organization  City & Guilds to build capacity among various partner projects including ‘Students in Palliative Care’ and Institute of Palliative Medicine. The Blue Yonder is redesigning its travel itineraries so that travellers can spend a significant amount of time at various Pain and Palliative Care Society and Institute of Palliative Medicine (IPM) run and supported link-centres to be inspired and learn from such initiatives.

Tracks We Leave is an initiative launched on 09th Oct 2010 on the World Hospice and Palliative Care day. The Blue Yonder employees save 3 Rs per day which is equally matched by the management to help raise small donations for the Pain and Palliative Care Society. TBY is a small organization with currently nine employees spread out of India, Germany and Norway. In a year they contribute a small amount of INR 18,000 to Pain and Palliative Care Society. There are more several tour operators in Kerala. By promoting this among peers, they believe they can contribute significantly to making Palliative Care management in Kerala largely self-sustaining.

The Blue Yonder is one of the social enterprises, along with the IPM involved in promoting the initiative of Our Responsibility to Children (ORC), a brainchild of Vijayan IPS, the erstwhile Police Commissioner of Kozhikode in Kerala. Observing the trends of teenagers and youths with delinquent behaviour, the police commissioner approached civil society organizations in the city of Kozhikode to help the police in helping these youth to be part of mainstream society.

The Blue Yonder has committed to train these youth as guides and interpreters and be absorbed subsequently by the tourism industry. Given the paucity of good interpreters in the tourism industry, this initiative could be a win-win situation for travelers, the tourism industry and the communities in question.

Footprints is a social rehabilitation project by IPM for physically and mentally challenged people. Patients with debilitating spinal injuries and those with advanced renal diseases and chronic psychiatric illness are the main beneficiaries of this initiative. Patients are trained to make various items like umbrellas, environment-friendly pens, paper bags etc., through interactive training camps organized at the IPM. Raw materials are supplied to the patient after the training, and the products that they make are collected, sold and the profit returned to them. The project depends heavily on the involvement of the students from various campuses in Calicut city who are linked to the patients. The Blue Yonder brings travelers to assist the patients as well as local volunteers in these socio-economic rehabilitation initiatives.

Said Gopi Parayil of The Blue Yonder “Last year at the World Travel Market in London, one of the leading destination management companies from Cochin asked us this question. “All your talk about responsible tourism is fine. It’s easy for a property to be more responsible than a tour operator like us. They can make simple changes like install energy saving bulbs or setup rainwater harvesting in their property. They might purchase local produces. Even if we had aspirations to be a responsible tourism operator, frankly we don’t know how to do this. Do you have some suggestions?”

“We work with several social sectors in India and the world over. Tour operators claim to be ‘destination experts’ and in most cases, the insight on the destination provided is limited to the quality of hotels or the best restaurants, mostly in touristy locations. So called ‘cultural creatives’ who travel to destinations like India are no longer happy with what conventional travel companies are offering. Enquiries are very much focused on local experiences, interactions with local people. Most travelers also want to understand the social fabric that makes India what it is.”

“We find today that the borders of social engagements between organizations are fading. Organizations like Institute of Palliative Medicine (IPM) and The Blue Yonder are finding common grounds despite the differences in their respective core-competencies. We believe, this is opening up the potential of tourism as an industry to be engaged in social business.”

“The Blue Yonder uses its national and international networks to bring the attention of the world to the unique work that is done by thousands of local volunteers in the Palliative care movement. Our travelers bring in small revenues as well as volunteering opportunities to IPM and IPM-supported projects in Kerala. Some of these initiatives may be small presently, but they have possibilities of scaling up, creating opportunities for the rest of the travel industry in terms of partnerships and business and social engagements.”

Mary Mulvey from Greenbox, Ireland while travelling with us gently reminded us that we might be ‘green muting’ by not talking about all that we might be engaged in. Her view was that that her choice of holidays we offered might have been different if she knew how deeply we were involved in local issues. This opens up a new opportunity for travel companies and tour operators in particular, where we can keep interested travelers more deeply engaged in tourism destinations.

Perhaps this is one direction where tour operators can demonstrate their commitment to responsible tourism. It’s a good direction to take- not just for doing a business well but also for the well-being of the business of tourism.

Valere Tjolle

Valere Tjolle edits the Sustainable Tourism Report Suite, latest special Vision offer at: www.travelmole.com/stories/1146486.php