RELIEF WORKERS INTERNATIONAL

TRAVEL TO INDIA ON A LIFE CHANGING HUMANITARIAN RELIEF MISSION.

Children waiting online at an RWI Pediatric/Educational Camp in the Rann

Join us on a breath-taking and heartwarming journey as we travel through the desert.
We’ll spend our days helping local school children and providing critical health care to rural villagers, and our nights beneath the stars. As we change their lives, we’ll transform ours.
 

Join us on our special New Year’s trip:
 

December 22nd, 2009 through January 2nd, 2010.

Please click here to view a breathtaking slideshow of our trip

TESTIMONIALS

For more informational about the trip, please go to Trip Info.

 
For more information about costs, please go to our Trip Costs page.

Along the way we’ll sample the best of local cuisine, see the rare wildlife of the Rann, and experience the region’s unique cultural life.
Please read about our Mission, and the Itinerary. And please think about traveling with us.

Relief Workers helping at rural medical camp – Photo: Marc Lécureuil

You too can participate alongside our medical team as they perform our free “Give the Gift of Sight” cataract surgery.

A special project of Relief Riders International, Relief Workers International (RWI) is an adventure travel company that organizes humanitarian expeditions through breath-taking areas in India.

Relief Workers International LLC PO Box 615 Great Barrrington, MA 01230 info@reliefworkersinternational.com

Dear Friends,

I would like to personally thank all of you for your kind messages of support as we worked to launch Relief Workers International.

After 4 years of conducting groundbreaking humanitarian expeditions on horseback, we were delighted to go back to the drawing board to create a different humanitarian travel experience that required no riding skills.

Building on our prior success, we designed our Relief Workers trip to radiate out from a central point allowing time each day for us to integrate, reflect and breathe in the beauty of our whole experience.

As all of you may remember the attacks on Mumbai last November made us face the very real choice of cancelling our inaugural trip. Transcending our fears and deciding to continue was grounded in our willingness to expand and reach out to others in the hope of overcoming this overwhelmingly tragic incident.

The decision to move forward was met with a host of magical meetings and miraculous experiences serving to help overcome our collective grief. The beauty of this experience was witnessing the numerous communities come together for a common purpose with no other agenda than to help people; a humbling reminder of the power of showing up, reaching out and assisting others wherever we might find ourselves.
Please click here to view a beautiful slideshow of Relief Workers International’s inaugural trip in Gujarat.

TRIP HIGHLIGHTS

Reaching out with RWI”S Humanitarian Programs:
Our intimate and informative talk with Honorary Secretary Dr. Madhuben Naik of The Indian Red Cross combined with a stirring tour of Mahatma Gandhi’s Ashram served as an inspiring beginning.

We were thrilled to be able to serve 2600 villagers through our humanitarian programs. Our medical camps at both the ancient village of Zinzuwada and the Salt mining town of Kharagodha proved efficient as we offered 1000 villagers treatments in two days.

An afternoon, impromptu mini mobile medical camp for the semi-nomadic Mir community living by the side of the road in Dasada, allowed us to treat 70 villagers, 50 of whom were children.
Nothing is more heartwarming than the joyful and colorful receptions we received from the 1500 children in our Pediatric and Educational camps held at local schools. With their bright eyes and touching smiles, they embraced us in their excitement and curiosity.

After 5 years of being involved in these programs, nothing is clearer to me than realizing the impact each one of us can have by simply showing up and reaching out.

Empowering communities in Gujarat
The joy of doing this type of work is meeting likeminded people with a sincere interest in co-creating sustainable programs and long term solutions. Upon learning of our relief mission, INTAS Biopharma Director, Mr. Mani Iyer took this opportunity to create social awareness among his executive team. Through personal experience Mr. Iyer explained that truly helping people is about engaging communities, not just providing financial support.
INTAS Biopharma executives not only provided most of the medications free of charge, they came to experience first-hand the human impact of their actions at our medical camp in Kharagodha. This prompted the young INTAS Executives to move towards the possibility of having them continue our Pediatric and Educational programs throughout the year.

Serenity in the Rann of the Kutch
We stayed at Rann Riders Resort, a garden paradise shared with exotic flowers and a multitude of rare songbirds. From here traveling into the vast beauty of The Rann gave us an unparalleled experience in stillness and perspective that wove itself through the entire trip.

Our sunrise meditations, Yoga sessions and overnight camp under the expansive desert sky opened us to deeply embrace our own sense of peace. Bringing these experiences into our humanitarian programs served to heighten our feelings of connection to those we met and gratitude for the opportunity to help others

FUTURE PLANS
Relief Workers International New Year’s trip
Building upon the success of our inaugural Relief Workers International trip, we are offering one special Holiday and New Year’s trip:

December 22nd, 2009 through January 2nd, 2010.

We hope you will join us one what promises to be a unforgettably heartwarming experience.
Relief Riders International offers exciting new Relief Rides in 2010
Thank you so much for all of your wonderful e-mails. So many of you have been writing to inquire about upcoming Relief Rides.
We are thrilled to announce that Relief Riders International is offering two exciting new Relief Rides this winter. We have found an outfitter who is very excited to be working with Relief Riders International and will be providing excellent Marwari horses.
These Relief Rides will be taking place in semi-mountainous and desert terrain close to Udaipur and Jodhpur in Southern Rajasthan.
The trip dates are:

Marwar Relief Ride January 18th through February 2nd, 2010

Mewar Relief Ride February 20th through March 8th 2010

Our rides are limited to 12 riders. Please understand that we have not offered Relief Rides since 2008 and meanwhile have had a lot of interest.

To avoid disappointed, please contact us sooner rather than later to ensure your space on the ride.

Expect to receive a Relief Riders International newsletter with more details.

We hope you will join us either in The Rann or horseback through Thar Desert in India this winter.

Sincerely,

Alexander Souri

Founder and Executive Director
Relief Workers International

All of us at Relief Workers International are grieving for the loss and pain the people of Mumbai have suffered. The commuters at the railway station, porters, the staff of the Jewish Center, hotel employees and international travelers, the police were all innocent victims of pointless terror.

The attack came not long after RWI staff had completed another pre-planning expedition to Gujurat to prepare for our upcoming trip.

We have struggled with the issue of what we do next. There were many initial moments of fear and worry, and the thought that we ought to cancel our trip.

For several reasons, we have decided to continue on. As we watched the television coverage, it was impossible not to think about the attack in New York on 9/11 and the attack on Madrid then London.

Terror is like a large boulder thrown into a beautiful still lake. For a while, all you can see is the shockingly unexpected ripples.

For us, it is important to remember the lake the way it was. With the knowledge it can and will return.

We remembered how excited we were on our recent return trip to Gujarat to see the new itinerary take shape, to see the villages we would visit, the places where we planned to host our medical clinics. We remembered all the work we had done in the years before: the schoolchildren we treated, the smiles on their faces when we gave them the gifts of books; the faces of those who, thanks to our Gift of Sight program, could once more see. We looked forward to expanding that work to a new region. Imagining new friends.

For us, there is the challenge of trying to maximize safety in an unsafe world. And we believe the Rann, our ultimate destination, because it is a sparsely populated desert region is far from any form of danger.

Unfortunately, this new world we inhabit, while home to countless acts of kindness, and grace, and heroism is also home to mindless cruelty. It would be a lie to pretend that we can completely guarantee safety.

What we say now is that we will not be stopped. We know first-hand how we are made more whole by the small acts of bringing school supplies to village children; and how the lives of others are transformed by our free medical clinics.
Relief Workers International is more committed than ever to traveling with a purpose.

We hope you can join us as we travel in January to Gujarat, or sign up for one of our other trips later in the year.

Our trips are limited to 12 participants. If you are interested in joining us please let us know soon, as our trips tend to fill up quickly.
The dates of our upcoming trips are:

January 29 through February 9, 2009.

February 27 through March 10, 2009.

Please click on the above dates to view detailed itineraries
Please feel free to write or call 413.329.5876 should you have any questions or if you would simply like to learn more about the trip.
 
We hope you’ll join us in India this winter.
 
I look forward to hearing from you.
 
Sincerely,
 
Alexander Souri

Tags: Gift of Sight, Gujarat, Rann, Relief Workers International, Terror attacks in Mumbai, Travel forward, travel with a purpose, VolunTourism India