Extreme Surf Panama
Extreme Responsible Traveling
At Extreme Surf Panama, we want our tour operations to have a positive impact on local communities and the environment. We believe that those of us involved in the travel industry have exciting opportunities to support sustainable tourism projects, from collaborating with environmentally-aware ground operators to community outreach programs to saving endangered animals. As a responsible tourism operator, we understand our grave responsibility to ensure we tread lightly on our travels, by reducing the carbon footprint of our trips and enhancing the environment around us.
Here are our the top key aims of Extreme Surf Panama that help us maintain our efforts as responsible tour operators.
1.We keep all of our group travels at a maximum of 12 people per tour. This allows us to limit any adverse impact on communities and the environment.
2.We do not send out brochures as to minimize our use of paper resources. Our guides are knowledgeable and attentive. We advertise electronically through the web, all information is provided on our website. Customers may visit our web page for information. www.extremesurfpanama.com
3. We aim to foster international exchange and awareness by immersing clients into local culture.
4. We are offering all our customers the opportunity to volunteer or donate to any chosen approved charities we support. Guests have the accessibility and opportunity to be involved in any environmental, health or children charities.
Please see below for more details and upcoming non-profit fun raisers Extreme Travel Panama sponsors and supports. Extreme Surf Panama donates 5% of all tour sales to the charities listed below.
5. Majority of our transportation methods during the tours on the islands is by boat, bike or foot .
6. We actively promote Responsible Tourism practices to our suppliers within Panama. We work closely with hotels, guides, transportation firms to ensure they meet our expectations.
7. We invite all our clients to spread the message of Responsible Tourism practices by discussing ideas directly with our guides and hoteliers, and offering constructive comments on local questionnaires.
Extreme Surf Panama Donates and Volunteers at Panama's Two Top Children's Charities
30% of Panama's Population lives in extreme poverty - Your help
can make a difference
You
can help the children and families of Panama’s neediest citizens by donating to
or volunteering at some of the best run charities anywhere. Panama City’s
modern skyline belies the fact that 30% of Panama’s children live in extreme
poverty, a majority of them members of Indian tribes living in jungles and
mountains.
This
poverty has nothing to do with what we call “poverty” in the States or Europe.
Poverty in Panama means thousands of babies sick and dying from severe
malnutrition many in the hills out-of-sight. It means skinny migrant worker
children who begin labor at age 6 and will never have a childhood nor get an
education to break the poverty cycle.
There
a number of worthy charities. We have chosen two. It is a priviledge to
introduce you to their work, their superlative programs and leaders. Love of
children and the burning desire to help those most at risk is the driving force
in all that they do. You will feel this yourself.
Casa
Esperanza - Rescuing the children most at risk
In
1990, a group of Panamanian women decided that Panama would never have the
gangs of children that live on the street that plague most countries in Latin
America…Casa Esperanza accomplished that and much more. It begins by contacting
children selling on the street or working as migrant workers on coffee farms.
In a multifaceted approach it gives these at-risk children opportunities to go
back to school, get health care, and provides nutritional food and programs to
stabilize their family situation. If not for their work the street kids with no
education would soon turn to drug dealing or prostitution and the migrant
children would repeat the same desperate fate of their parents.
Nutrehogar
- Eradicating malnutrition in babies and children
Nutrihogar
rescues severely malnourished children and babies restoring their health at
special homes. They then educate and support their families in a multifaceted
way so the circumstances that created the malnutricion are not repeated. This
means everything from teaching Mothers to talk to their children to teaching
fathers how to grow needed crops. They have multiple other programs including
the daily distribution of high protein cookies and cereals to 6000 children in
communities with the highest rates of malnutrition.
Visit
their centers
Extreme
Travel Panama can arrange for any guest to have a guided trip to the centers
during their tour. We urge you to request a visit to Casa Esperanza or the Nutrihogar
center.
Guests
can help two ways: working as volunteer for the day or making a donation. In
the Nutrihogar centers you may get permission to regularly and personally care
for the malnourished infants and toddlers many of whom are very ill. Casa Esperanza
centers needs volunteers to spend time with their older kids-even if you don’t
speak Spanish, they will feel you care.
You
can also help by making a appliance donation. Ask the center you visit what
they need most - perhaps a washing machine, an office computer, lunch supplies
for a month. Monthly donation plans are also available.
When
you personally visit these amazing institutions you will experience for
yourself how much they do for Panama’s neediest with a shoe string budget and a
lot of love.
