21 May. Kisian, Kenya.

We have been in Kenya for a while now, and the work on the Rainbow-center is going well. Phillip (the director) is busy preparing for the Harambee (traditional fundraiser). Sending the invitation cards, dealing with political subtleties, organizing a party, holding many, many meetings. Kamiel lives inside the office of Rainbow since yesterday, which allows him to do more work here, combining digging, drilling, shoveling, raking, slashing, plowing with editing, writing, browsing, proofreading. There is more interest for Rainbow from the community now, and we are reaching beyond our district.

Exciting grassroots projects at the Rainbow Center

3 April, 2012. Kisian, Kenya.

It has been more than 2 years since we left Kisian, the little village south-east of Kisumu where we built a "Community Excellence Center". We are back now and very excited about kickstarting some low-tech high-impact projects, network with other communities in the area, organize theater or art workshops, all while having an amazing time here. If you are near Kisumu, or know anyone who is - this is a great opportunity to experience enthusiasm at the very grass roots.

Touchdown and first days in Nairobi

March 19, 2012. Nairobi, Kenya.

We are in Nairobi now for almost a week and found the place more or less unchanged since we left two years ago. This time, we didn't plan much in advance so we are now looking for places where we can help. We will go back to the Rainbow Center in Kisumu and probably visit a community in Nakuru on the way there.

Flying to Kenya tonight

12 March 2012. Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

Finally, plans materialize and we are flying one-way to Nairobi tonight. We're very much looking forward to seeing our friends again, helping the "Joy Valley" orphan home cum school in Kayole and learn a lot about hands-on local development. We don't have exact plans in Nairobi. All we know is a place to stay during our first days, with couchsurfers of course, and we'll take it from there.

In Amsterdam

18 February 2011. Amsterdam, Netherlands.

We have been in the Low Lands for more than a week now, went on a family visit and arranged some boring bureaucratic "stuff". The good news is that we are almost ready to go South by South-East (as those will be the predominant direction of our journey: south to Kenya first, than South-East to Capetown and hopping over to South America). But we might as well change our plans completely and go to any other country in the world (with very few exceptions). Do you have a suggestion where we should go?

Winter seems to be over here, the traditional ice-skating competition, the Elfstedentocht, was cancelled on the night we arrived here, and we can walk around with not much more than a sweater. The city is vibrant: through the window of a coffee shop where we worked today (I mean a shop where the sell coffee), we saw a parade of adorned cars proclaiming the greatness of the Prophet Mahomet. I thought that the participants looked rather dull and dutiful, but still, this colors public life.

Inside that coffee shop, the Stadskantine, Kamiel worked on the kindmankind.net-website, and now volunteertravelfreedom.org
is pointing to it (check it out and participate!). Meanwhile, Yeon visited a museum that turned out to be closed. More luck if we go out, tonight.

We are going to Holland!

6. February. Istanbul, Turkey.

For practical reasons, we have decided to visit the Netherlands for two weeks; Kamiel's family is there, and some unfinished paperwork. Add the fact that Dutch is his native tongue, so he can use the thing on media and potential supporters of Charity Travel. Plus we might get a chance to chime in with protests against some radical new Dutch laws. We're planning to move on to Kenya around February 20.

The 'Charity Travel' book got published in Korea!

Remember that Yeon went back to Korea last October to work on her book publication? It's finally out in Korea!

The title of the book is 'Good Travel Design' and it contains the basic concept of Charity Travel, how we started to do Charity Travel project together, lots of episodes on volunteering and Yeon's general views on travel, love, family and life. 

Now it's time to move on to the English version and we hope that one will be out there soon, too. 

If you are Korean or can read Korean, you can find the book in every major book shop under the name of '착한여행 디자인'. Or order it online here.

We hope you enjoy it, and if you did, please spread the word! 

Preparing for East Africa

Preparing for East Africa

11. January 2012. Istanbul, Turkey.

We have been living in Istanbul for six weeks and love this city a lot. But if all goes well, we will move south to Nairobi soon. We are, after all, on a mission. Istanbul has treated us very well and we were able to get ourselves more or less organized for the upcoming journey. In this article I present a tentative plan and our readers are very welcome to comment and suggest alternative itineraries or activities.

Xoslu Vision

Xoslu Vision

16-23 November 2011. Dakar, Senegal.

Xoslu Vision is a spirited hip hop and artist collective spreading the mindset of positive thinking and self-reliance among the youths of the poorest part of greater Dakar. Xoslu's take their destiny into their own hands, and hip hop turns out to be the perfect tool to advocate this spirit.

Green Senegal

Green Senegal

October 2011. St. Louis, Senegal.

Kamiel visits the small NGO Green Senegal during a brief stay in St. Louis. The organisation works with local communities on sustainable agriculture and has several projects in rural areas around the old colonial town of St. Louis in the north of the country. Kamiel visits the NGO together with a friend from Spanish NGO Conemund, and visits some well-managed projects on the ground. He supports by doing a few translations, and of course a little promotion for this NGO.