The Rustic Pathways Foundation is excited to announce our first-ever Alumni Advisory Board. This is an exciting new initiative aimed at engaging our most active alumni, providing exciting skill-building opportunities, and helping to push the Foundation toward our highest-impact year. The Alumni Advisory Board is comprised of six inspiring Rustic Pathways students who were among the top fundraisers for…
Feb. 20 was the one-year anniversary of Cyclone Winston, the strongest storm ever recorded in the southern hemisphere. The storm left a trail of devastation across many of Fiji's 332 islands, killing 44 people and impacting 350,000 others. The total estimated damage reached $1.4 billion. We wanted to take a look back and share with…
Last year, Rustic Pathways students completed 1,351 service hours with Baltimore City Community College's Refugee Youth Project. Those students served 100 refugee youth, one-third of the 4 to 21 year-olds the Refugee Youth Project supports each year. We're proud of that, but we need your help to continue our work with the Refugee Youth Project…
If you're reading this, you're probably familiar with the Rustic Pathways ethos: Education, Travel, Philanthropy. We pride ourselves on being a leader in student travel and providing young people with life-changing educational experiences, and we think we're pretty darn good at that. What you may not know is that we are also an impact driven company that believes…
Today is Giving Tuesday and it's never been easier to get involved! The Rustic Pathways Foundation supports locally-driven projects and programs in the regions where we travel. In 2016 alone we raised more than $250,000 to support 15 projects in 10 countries. We work directly with communities to identify high priority needs and then collect donations…
The Nasivikoso School in Fiji is now equipped with brand new furniture in the school and teachers’ houses thanks to the more than $10,000 raised by RP Foundation Development Ambassadors in 2015. The school purchased six beds with mattresses, three dining tables with chair, four dresser tables, thirty school desks with chairs, and three teachers’…
Our dedicated Development Ambassadors raised more than $16,000 in support of the Sacred Valley Project in Peru last year. The project provides a safe living space, nutritious meals, and supplementary education to young women in rural communities in the Andes so that they can avoid the often dangerous and time-consuming journey to and from school,…
A lot of progress has been made at Nambark Ethnic School in the last year. The construction of a two-story dormitory, an indoor bathing room, and a new toilet block is complete. Rural students in Northern Laos, especially members of ethnic minorities, often struggle in their pursuit of secondary education. Some high schoolers travel long…
The elementary school in Prek Toal, Cambodia, is sinking. In a demonstration of its commitment to this project, the Rustic Pathways Foundation has pledged $25,000 from its discretionary fund to support the construction of a brand new, five-classroom, cement schoolhouse, adding to the over $15,000 already raised by our passionate donors and Development Ambassadors. This…
We are excited to announce that 75 additional students in Kampong Cham, Cambodia will receive scholarships thanks to over $16,000 raised by our Development Ambassadors in 2015. We are proud to partner with Buddhism for Social Development Action (BSDA) on their initiative, Education for All. Founded in 2005 by a group of Buddhist monks, BSDA…
The Rustic Pathways Foundation is proud to announce that its 2015 end-of-year campaign was its most successful fundraising campaign in the organization’s history. Nearly 170 staff, alumni, and friends of Rustic Pathways volunteered their time to fundraise for the foundation’s six projects, in addition to its general fund. An astounding 1,050 new donors were generous…
OLLANTAYTAMBO, Peru—Sacred Valley Project Founder and Rustic Pathways Peru Country Manager Alex Ball was recently highlighted in an article published by Matador Network. He was hailed as a “hero working to empower women throughout the world.” Also highlighted in the article was Malala Yousafzai, the women’s education activist who was shot for defying the Taliban…
In an effort to learn about the religion, culture and economy of Southeast Asia, Andrew, Matthew, and William Liner went on an educational trip to region with Rustic Pathways during the summer of 2013. They were interested in discovering how children in other parts of the world live and how this differed from their own upbringing.…
Editor’s Note: In an effort to spread awareness of our global projects and celebrate the passionate and courageous individuals that support the Rustic Pathways Foundation, we are launching a series of blog posts that will attempt to illuminate the perspectives of those who work on our projects on a daily basis. We begin this series…