Global Exchange operates Reality Tours providing individuals the opportunity to understand issues beyond what is communicated by the mass media and gain a new vantage point from which to view and affect US foreign policy. They organize trips to over 30 countries in Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Rather than typical tourist travel, these tours focus on political issues, womens struggles, indigenous communities, the struggle for peace and justice.
Their tours are coordinated by locals working in the host communities we visit.
The idea that travel can be educational and positively influence international affairs motivated the first Reality Tour in 1989. Reality Tours was founded on the principles of experiential education and are intended to educate people about how we, both individually and collectively, contribute to global problems.
Their current topical focus includes the African Diaspora, Art and Culture, Civil Rights, Education, Environment and Sustainability, Fair Trade, Health and Healing, Labor and Economy, Peace and Conflict, Spirituality and Religion, and Women's Delegations.
The countries they're traveling to are primarily poor countries in South America, Africa and Asia, and very few trips go to Europe or North America. Their site says this is to inspire individuals to become advocates of social and environmental justice. This may be a sort of cultural presumption that it's poor countries that lack social and environmental justice. Hurm.
