PhilanthropicTravel

I founded Exquisite Safaris Philanthropic Travel Worldwide to inspire, empower and educate people about themselves and their world. Our 'creative capitalism' company partners with exceptional grassroots humanitarian projects delivering hope and valuable resources to all who collaborate.

The Exquisite Safaris philanthropic mission integrates a guided visit to a humanitarian outreach project into every private, luxury, epicurean experience we create. These personal introductions create authentic cross cultural friendships that generate trust, respect, and generous donations funding philanthropic travel projects worldwide.

"If you are coming to help me, you are wasting your time but if you are coming because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together." -Indigenous Saying

Collaboration creates Prosperity: Philanthropic Travel

I feel a deep connection where ever the following experience is re-enacted.

In 1972 my grandfather, grandmother and I visited the poorest country in the western hemisphere: Haiti. Much to my grandmother's dismay, my grandfather decided that our adventure for the day would be exploring the countryside with a Port Au Prince taxi cab driver as our guide. After an hour driving down a dusty rutted gravel road we stopped in at a rural marketplace to experience life in rural Haiti. It was along the side of that dirt road that we had our first personal philanthropic travel experience.

Soon after the dust from our cabbie's Toyota had settled, un-clothed children, adults and their livestock emerged from the surrounding area, undoubtedly to closely examine my aqua and orange tailor made Miami Dolphins leisure suit with white leather loafers. We were surrounded by smiling faces wondering who we were and why we had stopped by to say: bonjour. Ten minutes later, after just about everyone in the crowd had a chance to smile at us, touch us and make direct eye contact with us a soccer ball flew through the air. I trapped it and quickly passed it back to my new teammate who received it effortlessly after it had flown right over the heads of several adults.

"When we are very young children we know how to feel. It's innate. But as we lead a lifetime, we pick up so many thoughts, impressions, feelings, and ideas, that our sensitivity goes away." -F.L. Ph.d

Connecting I bonded with the local kids and my grandparents stood side by side with adults from the village while the cabbie lit a cigar. My grandmother, initially fearful of the unknown was now smiling, calmly and communicating in sign language with local women, and enjoying her experience. We all seemed to connected for those brief moments. The spontaneous transcendent events of that morning's cross cultural experience are still vivid today, as they were so many years before. Those few moments changed our lives.

Deja Vu During my first trip to Africa while driving between Maun, Botswana and Windhoek, Namibia I was moved to pull over at a village in a remote area of the Kalahari Desert, much to my friend Linette's consternation. She declined my offer to join me for a walk into the center of the grass hut village and decided instead to stay in the car -with the doors locked. Ten minutes later I returned to the car with a crowd from the village: children running, mothers talking, fathers trailing the entourage and once again soccer balls flying through the air. Linette gracefully emerged from the car with a smile and began to open the clothes intended to gift.

Captivated by everyone's curiosity, kindness and easy laughter Linette and I spoke of life in their village and life in our village in Switzerland and the USA. We felt our guests humanity and warmth, we were welcomed and felt safe as guests of the community. An hour later after sharing gifts of Nike tee-shirts and old Levis we had agreed to deliver two men who needed a ride to their cousins funeral in a village 25 kilometers away. Sent off with with an open invitation to return completed with smiling faces, vigorous handshakes and waves we set off down the Trans-Kalahari Highway towards Namibia.

A New Journey While driving I realized that the seed for Exquisite Safaris Philanthropic Travel, planted 27 years before in rural Haiti, had just awakened in Africa. That afternoon as I drove through the Kalahari Desert with Linette and our two new acquaintances on their way to celebrate an ending, I began again on a new journey: introducing travelers to locals with the intention of uplifting those local people and their communities through health, education and sustainable development.

If you are a traveler I encourage you to become a philanthropic traveler. Exquisite Safaris has developed partnerships with humanitarian outreach projects in Africa, Asia and South America: Orphanages, AIDS and medical clinics, schools, women's entrepreneurial initiatives, and clean water NGO's that will open their doors to you and connect you personally with the people they serve.

"Life changing luxury travel experience for you: health centers, clean water, schools and women's rights for those less fortunate in the locales you traverse: philanthropic travel". -David Chamberlain

"Don't follow the crowd. The crowd doesn't get there. They just run round and around in a crazy race. It never ends." -F.L. Ph.d

The Globalization of Empathy

"Someday after mastering winds, waves, tides and gravity, we shall harness the energies of love, and then, for the second time in the history of the world, man will discover fire." -Teilhard de Chardin

There are times when we share with others a special, fully interconnected consciousness. When great music thrills us, or we are mutually inspired by an awesome sunset, or when we fall in love, we are transported temporarily into a shared world which is remarkable.

This state of true intermingling is rare, for most of us, but it is experiential, and that means we know it for what it is; we feel it immediately as real and filled with meaning. When such an experience is past and we return to our normal, separated perceptions, the experience becomes a vulnerable memory, and our educated personality may reject the consciousness that knew this deeper connection.

Yet, the suspicion remains that there is something of mind that is not just inside our heads. We feel interconnected with each other and the world in a profound and important way. We know at some level that we are not isolated, but interdependent, so that a subtle energy of mine can reach out and mingle with yours, allowing us to share a moment that is important to both of us.

If we think of this potential extending beyond the two of us to a world full of living beings, we have the foundation for a model for global consciousness. Maybe, as Teilhard de Chardin believed, the world ultimately needs that shared consciousness and is actively growing toward it.

The research described here points to subtle indications that we do live in an interconnected, potentially conscious world, in which we surely play an important role. We have shown immense capacities for both destructive and creative impact, and this implies that the future is ours to mold.

It will be a desirable future in proportion to our level of consciousness, individually and globally.

-Roger Nelson


Travel philanthropy : Travelers philanthropy

David Chamberlain is a philanthropic travel thought leader and the founder and CEO of Exquisite Safaris Philanthropic Travel Worldwide, a creative capitalism corporation dedicated to supporting humanitarian outreach projects throughout the global communities philanthropic travelers visit.

In addition, Mr. Chamberlain leads a Corporate Donor Advisory Practice to multinationals who wish to integrate corporate social responsibility initiatives in the countries they maintain operations. Before founding Exquisite Safaris, Mr. Chamberlain was a philanthropic innovation consultant in Zurich, Switzerland. He has also served in the enterprise software and financial industries in the US.