Travelling for a cause

A Dubai charity designs programme for residents and employees to engage in travel and raise funds.

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Gulf for Good is offering working professionals and others from the Emirates an opportunity to travel and raise funds for a charity in Myanmar. © AFP, Khin Maung Win

Organisations from the Gulf often help workers go on trips to exotic places to raise funds for all sorts of causes, including breast cancer research and care as well as educating street children.

The trips blend in a sense of feel-good awareness for the participants, as well as adventure.

One Dubai-based charity, Gulf For Good, is organising a road trip in Myanmar in November to raise money as the South East Asian country opens up its doors to the world.

The trip aims to raise funds to build a 10-classroom school building with five toilets. After it is built, the school is expected to educate 512 children with 11 teachers.

"We have been planning this challenge for more than two years, and now with the recent political developments the timing is perfect," said Brian Wilkie, founder and chairman of Gulf for Good, in a statement.

Private companies such as HSBC are also building programmes for employees who are keen to travel and work for a socially noble cause.

A couple of years ago, a group of the bank's employees from Jordan, Dubai, Qatar, Sri Lanka and India travelled to Sirsi in the southern Indian province of Karnataka. They were there not for number-crunching but to observe scientists study the effect of human behaviour and climate change on forests.

The project was a collaboration among HSBC, the Earthwatch Institute, the Climate Group, which is an international non-governmental organisation, as well as the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the World Wildlife Fund.