Exploring Sustainable Partnerships: Venture with Impact's Collaborations with Social Organizations

In the realm of meaningful travel and social impact, partnerships play a pivotal role in driving positive change and fostering sustainable development. Venture with Impact is dedicated to facilitating impactful travel experiences for remote workers, actively collaborates with various social enterprises and organizations worldwide. In this blog post, we'll shine a spotlight on some of Venture with Impact's esteemed partners.

CIMAC – Empowering Women Through Communication and Information

In the pursuit of gender equality and women's empowerment, CIMAC ORG – Comunicación e Información de la Mujer emerges as a beacon of advocacy and social change. Based in Mexico City, CIMAC ORG is dedicated to promoting women's rights through communication, education, and grassroots activism. Through its partnership with Venture with Impact, CIMAC ORG provides participants with valuable opportunities to engage in advocacy campaigns, educational workshops, and community initiatives aimed at advancing gender equality.

Venture with Impact participants have the chance to collaborate with CIMAC ORG on various projects, including media campaigns, research initiatives, and capacity-building workshops. By supporting CIMAC ORG's mission, Venture with Impact contributes to the empowerment of women and the promotion of gender-inclusive development in Mexico and beyond.

La Casa del Mestizo: Providing Sanctuary for Over 120 Dogs

Venture with Impact also partners with a local dog shelter in Mexico City that serves as a home to over 120 dogs in need. These dogs are provided with food, shelter, and care while the shelter works tirelessly to find them adoptive owners who can provide them with loving forever homes. Through its collaboration with this shelter, Venture with Impact participants have the opportunity to volunteer their time and support efforts to care for these animals, contributing to their well-being and increasing their chances of finding permanent families. This partnership underscores Venture with Impact's commitment to supporting animal welfare initiatives and creating positive impact in local communities.

APAV - Support for Victims of Crime in Portugal: Providing Essential Support Services

APAV - Support for Victims of Crime in Portugal is a crucial organization providing support to victims of crime and their families. With a mission to promote and support victims' rights and to prevent crime, APAV offers a range of services including psychological support, legal advice, and assistance navigating the criminal justice system.

Through its partnership with Venture with Impact, APAV offers participants the opportunity to contribute to their mission by volunteering and supporting their various programs. Venture with Impact participants can engage in initiatives aimed at raising awareness about victims' rights, providing support to those in need, and contributing to the prevention of crime in Portuguese communities.

Fruta Feia: Fighting Food Waste and Promoting Sustainable Consumption

Fruta Feia is a social enterprise based in Portugal that is on a mission to fight food waste and promote sustainable consumption. They rescue "ugly" or misshapen fruits and vegetables that would otherwise go to waste due to cosmetic imperfections and sell them directly to consumers at affordable prices.

Through its partnership with Venture with Impact, Fruta Feia provides participants with opportunities to engage in sustainable food initiatives, including volunteering at their distribution centers, raising awareness about food waste, and promoting sustainable eating habits. By supporting Fruta Feia's efforts, Venture with Impact contributes to the reduction of food waste and the promotion of sustainable food systems in Portugal and beyond.

Venture with Impact's partnerships with organizations like La Casa del Mestizo, CIMAC, APAV, and Fruta Feia exemplify its commitment to fostering sustainable development, cultural preservation, and social impact around the world. Through these collaborations, Venture with Impact participants not only have the opportunity to engage in meaningful travel experiences but also contribute to positive change in communities across the globe. As we continue to strive for a more sustainable and inclusive world, partnerships between social enterprises and organizations like Venture with Impact play a vital role in driving progress and creating a brighter future for generations to come.

Nikki McIntosh: My Mexico City Experience 2023

In October 2023. I went to Mexico City with Venture with Impact. I decided to go on a Venture with Impact trip after my former supervisor did a trip in 2017 (I believe) and had a great experience. I started looking into VWI programs when the pandemic hit and everyone's travel plans were shut down. As soon as travel opened up and I felt safe to move forward, I reached out to Annie at VWI for more information about the Mexico City program. 

The VWI staff were super helpful in getting me prepared for my trip with travel checklist and guides. Pau, our program manager, was super friendly and helpful (and knows the best places to eat). I always felt supported by VWI staff during my trip.

In Mexico City, I lived with the other venturers in a beautiful location. The accommodations were a great size and we all had space to live and do our own thing while getting to know each other. When we had a small issue with our wifi, Pau came to the rescue and helped us get a better connection quickly. I was also pleasantly surprised at how well the other venturers and myself got along as roommates. Happy to say I've made life-long friends!

When I wasn't working from the accommodations or coffee shops, I volunteered at La Casa del Mestizo. La Case del Mestizo is a local dog shelter and I helped them write English and Spanish social media bios for dogs to help them get adopted. I also took a couple dogs on walks which was a great way to explore!

We also went to Xochimilco and Teotihuacan. The Xochimilco canals are beautiful with all the colorful boats and music. Our tour guide for Teotihuacan was great and really focused on the history. Fascinating to learn about! It was also incredible to learn more about Dia de los Muertos and see the festivities first-hand (which is something that I can cross off my bucket list)

My month in Mexico City with VWI is truly one I will never forget! I highly recommend participating in one of their programs. I know for a fact I will return to Mexico City as soon as possible.

What I Learned From My Venture with Impact Experience, 5 Years After

As a teacher, summers were sacred. They were this special, rare few weeks where 100+ names would slip from my mind and in its place there would be room, space for other ideas to occupy it. I’d forget the reports I had written and start to daydream about things I wanted and places I’d like to visit. I’d pick books to read for my own pleasure instead of through a literary lens for teaching. I’d operate on a new schedule not in 50-minute incremental blocks. 

It was liberating yet fleeting. 

And year after year my summers looked the same. Most often traveling home to visit friends and family I hadn’t seen for 10 months—a whirlwind of reunions, life updates, and coffee dates. Hardly the sandy, water-logged summer days of my youth but they had become routine. Which was exactly the problem. 

Looking for more, looking to squeeze a little more joy out of the beautiful month of July, I landed in Medellin ready to dive in. I had been clear, I didn’t want to teach ESL while I was there, but I was ready to contribute and partner with the community in whatever way I could. 

Wiping the sleep from my eyes, I was first greeted by my program director Lindsay with her fire-engine red hair along with what I would come to know as her signature smirk. After a brief tour of the flat and a groggy jetlag-laden introduction to Sarah, my roommate, it was time to begin. 

In those first few hours we had a welcome dinner, 10 new friends packed tightly around a table, with our new community partners squeezed between us, knee to knee. We ate and pantomimed our way through those initial interactions—ripe with our attempts at Spanish and the first evidence of our community partners patience.

But we would spread out, and go about our work alone. That little group of ten, that cohort of like-minded people, dispersed across the city to start on their own projects. Lending our own unique skill sets. So, I took the gondola up into the hillside and nervously navigated narrow streets and alleyways to Fundación Huellas. A community center housed in a humble room that was too small to contain the passion and enthusiasm of its leaders. Quite literally we took our work to the streets and before I knew it, there was a sign advertising my pilates class and we had dragged mats out into the street. 

And thus we began. I tried to teach the leaders some small movements and postures so they could lead classes on their own and modeled this foreign way to move one’s body in the name of fitness, mobility, and strength. 

Other days we’d hop in a cab and find our way to some other backroad in the hills and arrive at another space where the women could come together. With my limited Spanish and their reluctant participation, this process wasn’t always easy. I questioned how much good I was really doing. The hurdles these women faced were much larger than your typical new year, new body kind of resolution.The hope was that movement would teach them about their bodies, give them back some of the power they lost, and find a way to appreciate what they could do. For many of them, their bodies had lived through the extremes of abuse and the beauty of pregnancy. Their bodies became vessels, for others, but rarely for themselves. Ultimately, there were moments where my own ego misinterpreted their hesitation as indifference. I may know a lot about the body, how it moves and bends, but I knew little of their lives and it took time for me to understand just what I was asking them to do. Me, an outsider, was asking a group of vulnerable women to roll around on a mat in the name of health. In the name of body awareness. Empowerment. Lofty goals for a 30-minute routine and one I likely did not achieve in the few short works I navigated that hillside. 

But what I know, a lesson I have learned many times over, was that the takeaways were for me too. I’d like to think of volunteering, the act of giving oneself as an altruistic task, but in reality it isn’t, which is why I keep coming back to it. I give to understand. To learn. To grow. 

In the end, I was humbled by the tenacity of this organization and its leaders—undeterred by roadblocks and limiting external factors. Instead, often reinvigorated by these hurdles and armed with a seemingly endless supply of creativity and compassion. 

Admittedly, I don’t know what is happening there now. A quick scroll through their social media speaks to their continued work and in the background I see familiar spaces I once occupied too. But that’s also part of the process—moving on and moving forward. In the same way my life has gone down different paths, the organization has continued to forge ahead with the intimate knowledge of what their community needs. While I too have pushed forward, back home, thinking about the spaces I can occupy and how I can serve even closer to home. 

Now, five years later, I think back to Medellin often—partially because my “VWI Medellin July 🇨🇴” WhatsApp thread still pings on a weekly basis with updates, pictures, and well wishes from the friends I made there. We’ve met up too—on the beaches of Kauai, nestled into busy cafes in the hilly streets of San Francisco, and in the snow-covered peaks of the French Alps. Had it not been for the pandemic, a handful of us would’ve summited Kilimanjaro together in summer 2020—a dream that we still share.

That one month, those few short weeks, even swayed my decision when choosing my graduate program. I ultimately chose Gonzaga because they offered a Colombia immersion and I wanted an excuse to go back. 

Ironically, I am no longer a teacher. Those sacred weeks of summer I leveraged to afford myself this opportunity in the first place are now just normal weeks in my life. But when I was preparing to leave my career and explore new opportunities, I called Sarah first. Then Linda. And then the others—the whole VWI Medellin July crew. I sought their support, their encouragement, and their guidance. Collectively, they relentlessly propped me up, helped me network, and vouched for me during a season of uncertainty. They became my community, one spread out around the world, but still tethered in this shared desire to give, to understand others, and to grow. 

An Interview with Venturer Fran Scarlett

About Lisbon…

I love history and I love old -  Lisbon with its history and cobblestone streets, and a castle right in the city! The people were great and gracious and kind, one of the things I loved the most was the approach to life.

Nobody walks around with their coffee, they sit and sip their espresso.  The parks have cafes, and people just sit, relax, and enjoy.  People take their lunch - everything stops at 1 pm for the lunch break, and that is how it is, there is no debate.  Work is just a piece of life, it isn’t life. I loved the pace, the real connection piece that we don’t have as much in the U.S.

I loved the public transportation, I used the metro, and didn’t need my Google Maps by the end of the month. For 5 weeks I wasn’t behind the wheel of the car, which is incredible.  Walking is such an integral part of life in Lisbon. I could just pop out of my apartment and walk anywhere.

About My Volunteering…

I felt that I was really able to offer value to APAV, my partner organization, which was focused around finances and fund-raising.  I created a financial model that was based on population size, incidences of domestic violence in that community, staffing model and other factors so that they could plug the numbers in to see the cost of what it would be to run a center in a given municipality.  

I worked directly with the executive director, Carmen, such a wonderful and lovely person and so dedicated to the work.  They were also looking to raise money from the U.S., so I worked with them on a fund-raising strategy for how to approach US donors.  

Favorite experiences and activities outside of working and volunteering…

I honestly didn’t do a lot of sightseeing in Lisbon, because I felt like I was living life!  I went to popular places, but also many places where tourists don’t go. For example, we spent a night at an afro-beat pop-up club that we went to together as a group, and had a ball! There was an immersive light show at Convento Carmo, and we had dinner during the show. I also met some people through a Facebook group that I signed up for, and had lunch with them various times.

I did a lot with the cohort! One of my favorite things was going to Praia Ursa, a stunningly beautiful beach just 45 minutes from Lisbon!  One of the other cohort members had picked an art gallery/vegan restaurant, and we sat for over 3 hours enjoying lunch.  

When we went to a vineyard in the Douro Valley and the winemaker served us!  Usually the winemaker is sitting on high somewhere, but no, he poured the wine, he brought the tapas and he took pictures.  He wanted to be with us, which I felt was the spirit of the people that I encountered in Portugal. So generous.

Final Thoughts?

I have traveled a fair amount, however one of the cohort members had never traveled internationally by herself before, and I thought, what a great experience, Venture with Impact is a great way to travel for the first time!  You have a framework, it’s structured, someone is watching out for you, and you have other people in the program to hang out with.  For me as someone who is fairly experienced in international travel, it was really about digging into the local culture and  living like a local.

I think that wherever you are on the spectrum of travel and giving back, or whatever it is that is your driver, the program allows that to happen. 

International Education Connections

As I get ready to start the new school year, I take time to reflect on my teacher’s retreat in Medellin, Colombia this summer. I flash back to traveling solo and being nervous about meeting 15 new people that would make up our group over the six-day period. However I needn't have worried. During our orientation dinner, I immediately realized that as educators, we all share a common bond; our passion for teaching! Connections between us were made quickly and grew stronger as the week went on.

Lindsay, our lead coordinator made us all feel welcome and cared for as we learned about and navigated Columbian culture. She gave us tips and clearly explained what we were were going to experience together. On the subway, she counted us, in order to make sure we all got on and off at the right times just as we do with our students on a field trip! It was comforting to know she was there for us!

Communa 13 was our experiential base for our work together. We learned that Communa 13 is a vibrant community who has dealt with a very violent past. According to our guide who lives in this neighborhood, the government has done a great deal  to help create a safer environment and is still working for change. Talented street artists livened up this impoverished area with colorful images evoking strong meanings everywhere you looked. Personally, I seek out street art across the globe as I travel and there is no place I’ve experienced which comes close to the art I viewed in Commune 13! 

 As a photographer, it was a dream come true!

Another highlight for me was visiting three public schools in this district at the elementary and high school levels. Devoted YMCA personal who work closely with the schools arranged for the visits and explained to us the school system’s strengths and challenges. We individually and collectively reflected on our observations after the visits. We all noted the safe and caring learning environments that the teachers and school campuses offered their students and the PASSION of the teachers in working with their classes. The students were welcoming and curious of who we were and those of us who spoke Spanish held great conversations with various students.  We ended our visitations with a two-hour workshop hosted at one of the schools. This was a forum for both Columbian and USA teachers to share thoughts on educational practices and challenges. As time went on, teachers realized that both groups have a great deal in common; we face similar challenges and teach towards a common theme of instilling HOPE to all our students. This event was powerful as it gave Columbian teachers space to voice what was on their minds and be heard. Teachers in our group were humbled by what they shared.

The last of many highlights I’ll write about is the service work we embarked on. After two subway lines rides, three cable cars and a small hike, we arrived at Fundaticion Huoellas, a nonprofit organization which provides education and activities for the many displaced Venezuelan children living in Medellin.

They cannot not attend school until their formal paperwork is complete. As a group, we toted bags of educational supplies and toys to leave for the organization. We played and laughed with the children for a couple of hours delighting in the fact that these children could leave any woes behind and just be children! Double Dutch skipping and ball tag was a big hit! Their easy acceptance of our group was a strong reminder of our shared humanity.

After a week of action-packed activities, school experiences, and reflections, we said our goodbyes at the farewell dinner. Each of us took away newfound friendships and memories to last a lifetime.

So, as I begin my new school year, I bring forth renewed energy and vigor from this educational retreat. It enabled me to connect with wonderfully passionate teachers, embrace the warm culture of Columbia and appreciate the students we encountered along the way.

This photo was taken after our cooking class as we were enjoying the fruits of our labor!

Where to next year, Venture with Impact?