Author Archive
Joanna Bielawski, Marketing Manager
Direct Line: 800.421.8907 | E-mail: joannab@africantravelinc.comJoanna was born in Poland and moved to the United States as a young girl. Very early on she caught the travel bug. Combining her love for travel and marketing presented several job careers within the travel industry.
At African Travel she's designs, manages and evaluates integrated marketing campaigns across the USA region to achieve business objectives. She's also responsible managing national accounts marketing initiatives. She loves to travel, spending time with friends and family and just being a mom.
Travel Changing the World
It was announced today that MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® Experiences by our parent company The Travel Corporation (TTC) and our family of brands has been named an honoree in the Corporate Social Responsibility category of Fast Company’s 2021 World Changing Idea Awards. Fast Company is the world’s leading business media brand, with an editorial focus on innovation in technology, leadership, world changing ideas, inspiring readers to lead with purpose and embrace change. Now in its fifth year, the Fast Company Award honors ground-breaking ideas launched in 2020 that are deeply committed to pursuing innovation for the good of society and the planet.
Selected from thousands of applicants, we are honored that our MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® Experiences have been recognized along with the other notable individuals and brands doing incredible, world-changing work. MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® Experiences were developed as a tool for TTC’s brands to advance positive change around the world through the direct participation of travelers. They’re meant to transform the way we think about the travel experience, for the mutual benefit of travelers and the people and places they visit. It is our hope this transformation can shift the way we travel for good, through long-lasting and meaningful impact.
Our everyday choices and actions have an impact on the world around us, and the way we travel is no exception. This has never been clearer than in the present era of COVID-19, with the entire world experiencing an unprecedented pause in travel. Never before have people across the globe collectively appreciated the gift of travel in its absence, in addition to its economic value to communities worldwide.
What sets MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® Experiences apart from other travel experiences?
MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® Experiences are chosen for the ways in which they directly advance the United Nations Global Goals (UNSDGs), widely accepted as the blueprint to address issues such as poverty, inequality, biodiversity and more. Established in 2016, the goals were quickly adopted by governments, businesses and society as those we should all be working towards. We used the UNSDG’s and their specific indicators to develop a set of our own criteria, endorsed by leading industry sustainable development experts, which allow our family of brands to identify transformative experiences that go beyond being a feel-good experience. This means we are building travel experiences that display genuine social and environmental good.
To identify MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® Experiences, we built a proprietary assessment tool that identifies if an experience meets a Global Goal, and if so, which goal or goals it supports.
How Can an Experience Change the World?
Choices are critical. From the clothes you buy, the food you eat and the businesses you support, to the trip you’ve been waiting to take since COVID-19 made itself known. Our portfolio of MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® Experiences can change the travel industry, which is one of the world’s largest, accounting for 10.3% of the global GDP (WTTC, 2019). By choosing to participate in one of these experiences and actively seeking out travel designed to make a positive impact, you are helping us to prioritise community-based enterprises – from supporting women-owned businesses, experiencing unique farm stays that utilize regenerative agriculture practices or learning about ancient cultures that carry on their traditions by sharing their stories with others. You have the power to choose these experiences and support sustainable practices, while setting the tone for the purpose-driven offering you expect of the wider travel industry.
Why and how are MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® Experiences designed around the Global Goals?
Our goal in developing our MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® Experiences was to positively impact broader environmental and social issues, so it was a natural fit to look to the United Nations Global Goals to help narrow our focus and ladder up to international efforts.
MAKE TRAVEL MATTER®
How you can start today
As part of our sustainability strategy How We Tread Right, our goal at African Travel is to include at least 1 MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® Experience on 50% of our itineraries worldwide by 2025, and we are well on our way there. For your next adventure, browse our MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® Experiences and join us in making travel a force for good. To view more ideas, visit our Sustainable Safaris.
Reasons to Safari in East Africa
Our Top 9 Reasons to Safari in East Africa
THE AMBOSELI NATIONAL PARK: MOUNT KILIMANJARO
After an adventure-filled day on safari, “magical” can only begin to describe the experience of sipping sundowners overlooking your lodge’s waterhole with Tanzania’s snow-clad Mount Kilimanjaro as your backdrop.
RWANDA AND UGANDA: GORILLAS IN THE MIST
From your lush eco-lodge in Rwanda’s Virunga Mountains and Parc National Des Volcans or Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, tread softly and observe in wonder the families of rare, habituated mountain gorillas.
LEWA WILDLIFE CONSERVANCY: SAVING RHINOS
Northern Kenya’s popular, family-friendly wildlife-viewing destination, Lewa is lauded for its groundbreaking rhino rehabilitation efforts. Experience an understanding of wildlife, and an authentic interaction with the local community.
MAHALE MOUNTAINS: ENDANGERED CHIMPANZEES
With its golden beaches framed by jungle-covered peaks along the shores of Lake Tanganyika, Tanzania’s beautiful, isolated Mahale Mountains are home to some 1,000 of the last remaining chimpanzees in Africa.
MASAI MARA AND SERENGETI NATIONAL PARK: THE GREAT MIGRATION
The annual Great Migration of millions of wildebeest and other herbivores across East Africa’s Serengeti-Mara ecosystem is one of the greatest spectacles in the natural world — the perfect “Out of Africa” safari.
NGORONGORO CRATER: WORLD’S LARGEST
Acclaimed for being one of the greatest natural wonders of the planet, Tanzania’s great unbroken caldera is the world’s largest crater. Prepare to be awed as you observe
the calliope of wildlife.
SAMBURU NATIONAL RESERVE: THE SPECIAL FIVE
Kenya’s pastoral Samburu tribe welcomes you to the land of “the special five” — the Grevy’s zebra, the Somali blue-necked ostrich, the Beisa oryx, the reticulated giraffe and the dainty gerenuk.
SELOUS GAME RESERVE: VAST AND UNTOUCHED
For those desiring a wild and rugged safari in an untouched land, Tanzania’s Selous is the answer. Africa’s biggest game reserve is even larger than Switzerland.
TARANGIRE NATIONAL PARK: BAOBABS AND ELEPHANTS
Majestic baobabs dwarf the herds of elephants that feed beneath them in Tanzania’s Tarangire. The park’s permanent river serves as a lifeline for the Maasai people
and a great diversity of wildlife.
The Rescue Of Roi
On the 22nd October Richard Roberts from the Mara Elephant Project contacted us about the plight of a young milk dependent calf, approximately 10 months old, whose mother had been found dead on the plains of the Masai Mara that day. Closer inspection of the dead mother revealed that she had been poached and died from a poisoned spear wound on her cheek. She had been photographed by a visitor happily feeding with her little baby underfoot, both alive and well.
The next day the tragedy unfolded and the same visitor found a very different scenario with the baby confused by her dead mothers side, but in the company of the rest of the herd, trying to come to terms with it all. The little calf was then whisked away by the rest of the herd but not before she had said her painful goodbyes to her lifeless mother. As a milk dependent baby she would have little hope of survival without being rescued as a lactating mother in the herd would never have enough milk to satiate two calves. The tragedy was reported to the Mara Elephant Project and KWS. Everyone realized that her young milk dependent calf had little hope of survival without her Mum and that she needed to be rescued before the herd travelled great distances with her, possibly into Tanzania where the hope of any rescue would be lost forever. The baby without sufficient milk would only get weaker and weaker and eventually be unable to keep up with the herd, and be left behind.
Coordinating together with the DSWT elephant Keeper rescue team, who had by now landed at Olare Orok airstrip, Richard Roberts of MEP had the unenviable fraught task of separating this baby from the herd before she was spirited away and lost. With careful maneuvering the calf was separated by vehicle in order to enable the DSWT Keepers to quickly leap from the moving land cruiser and restrain the baby. This took some planning as the matriarch was extremely protective of the young orphaned baby. What had been observed in the meantime was when the orphaned calf tried to suckle her (She had her own calf a little older than the orphaned baby so was lactating) she would push her away, not prepared to share her milk and deprive her own baby. The separation was done extremely effectively by the DSWT, so experienced in restraining elephants, and with so many others from the MEP prepared to jump in and help. The little calf was wrapped and strapped and prepared for her flight to Nairobi, while the rest of the team from the MEP together with the DSWT funded Mara Mobile Veterinary Unit headed by KWS Veterinary Officer Dr. Limo went to do an autopsy on the dead mother to absolutely confirm her cause of death. Her tusks in the meantime had been removed by the authorities.
We named the little girl Roi and she was watched and cared for closely throughout the flight by the DSWT Keepers and given some tranquilizer to take the edge off what had been an extremely traumatic and heartbreaking day for her. She finally arrived at the DSWT Nursery in Nairobi National Park after dark. She was a very robust baby from the outset not having been without mothers milk for long, and thankfully very soon took to the bottle which made things simpler. She was confined to a stockade for a couple of days but remained aggressive and clearly agitated when the others left her orbit for the day out in the Park. We made the decision to let her out despite her not having tamed down as much as we would ideally like and this made all the difference. She was immediately comfortable and content amidst the older orphans who paid her attention and provided her with the elephant love and affection she craved and missed. She was hooked on her milk bottle so continued to gravitate towards the Keepers for her three hourly feeds.
As the days have passed little Roi has settled in completely and is now extremely attached to her Keepers, familiar with the routine and is playing once more and she appears to be genuinely happy.
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