Solidestinations Solidarity Tourism

Solidestinations is a social business operation comprising locally embedded solidarity tourism and social/civil society wellbeing projects. We aim primarily to promote economic, social and cultural development in the local communities in which we are embedded – principally those in Batticaloa in the Eastern province of Sri Lanka – which are a hub of homestay tourism and social project activities.The ethic of the operation, which blends intersecting solidarity tourism/ecotourism (contra mass tourism), social justice, Fairtrade and other principles, is encapsulated in our motto: ‘a nice place for us to live, a pleasant place for you to visit…’

 A foundational part of our activities is to facilitate opportunities for travellers to responsibly engage in sightseeing and cultural activities, from a base amongst collaborators in the village. Travellers are afforded immersion and experiential learning opportunities and, potentially, an impetus to develop solidarity bonds and supportive practices after leaving the host. This in turn helps to generate funding for facilitation of community development projects – in particular, our soon-to-be International Play Association (IPA) affiliated children/youth play centre. 

 The operation functions, ultimately, to provide opportunities for youth (particularly girls) to develop play and leadership skills, and to help improve the status of local leaders (particularly women) by supporting skill development resource access (so existing skills can be deployed). In this way the homestay tourism/ecotourism/community tourism economic initiative has complementarity with the social projects – all of which travellers/volunteers and others are welcome to contribute to, if requisite capacity can be demonstrated.

Please visit our website or Facebook page to learn more!