Rising Trend in Community Aid Tourism

In 2015 Sri Lanka Tourism launched its Community Aid Tourism project at the Foundation of Goodness MCC Centre of Excellence in Seenigama during a visit by US Olympian Missy Franklin, recognizing a new travel trend attracting more and more tourists every year looking for a meaningful holiday which combines travel, adventure and charity.

The Foundation of Goodness is a great example of local organizations stepping up to provide a truly unique and one of a kind experience for travelers, making their visit to Sri Lanka all the more meaningful and memorable by giving them an opportunity to engage with rural Sri Lankans and truly become one with the community.

Within 2017 alone, the Foundation of Goodness hosted over 1,750 overseas visitors as part of their various community aid tourism, sports tourism and volunteerism programmes, with a further 350 visitors engaging in their social enterprise ventures, ‘Plates of Goodness’ and the ‘Dive Seenigama’ Dive Tourism Centre.

As an organization that offers a large range of programmes via 30 activity sectors that reach over 15,000 beneficiaries every month, the Foundation of Goodness gives travelers the opportunity to engage in a variety of community development programmes including teaching English, helping out at their pre-school or IT Centre, conducting special workshops for the women’s empowerment and business skills centre, training with talented young sportsmen and women at their Sports Academy in Seenigama or engaging with elderly and  kids at local aged care homes  and orphanages, while living in the village and being a part of the villagers’ daily lives.

These interactions play a key role in developing local communities so that more and more people from the community can benefit from tourism while at the same time they also help add dimension and meaning to the lives of travelers, many of whom have life changing experiences through the insights they gain. In addition to discovering a new country, they discover new aspects of themselves their own lives.

Pimp My  Tuk Tuk are a group of expats working in Asia who have now travelled to Sri Lanka twice to participate in a charity ride organised in partnership with the Foundation of Goodness where they travel around the island driving tuk tuks and stopping at local communities to conduct philanthropic activities. The group have built 3 reverse osmosis water purification plants in Sri Lanka, and met with the villagers whose lives they have changes forever by providing clean drinking water, something they themselves take for granted in their daily lives. The group has also helped provide solar power to 80 families in two remote mountaintop villages in Hasalaka and spent time with children from various special needs homes which left a lasting and profound impact on them and how they view life.

In addition to these experiences groups visiting Seenigama also have the chance to engage in cultural dance performances, dress up in Saari and Sarong, paint traditional wooden masks, go diving and snorkeling off the beautiful coast of Seenigama or create their own spice blends and participate in cookery classes to take a taste of goodness back home with them. While having fun and enjoying their holiday, these visitors have the satisfaction of knowing that every penny they spend hoes back to supporting the community and helping the very people they meet during their visit.

With approximately 60 international teams to engaging in Community Aid Sports Tours every year, the vast majority of whom are school teams along with around 150 overseas volunteers the Foundation of Goodness provides children, youth and young adults from all around the world a chance to meet fellow students from a rural background in Sri Lanka on an  equal footing, testing their skills in a game of cricket or netball and learning respect and mutual appreciation while broadening their horizon through these invaluable interaction which  can change the course of their future for the better.

Community Aid Tourism gives people the chance to see the world, and make it a better place at the same time.