Business Profile: EcoTulum

Here at The Enchanting Group, our parent company, we have our own destinations for ecotourism.  Today marks the beginning of our service trips at EcoTulum, a resort in Tulum, Mexico.  There are two volunteers that are arriving at the EcoTulum resort, to embark on a week of fun and service.  It is our first volunteer trip to this resort as EcoTulum (as well as Ulaa) tries to provide service opportunities in its unique location.

EcoTulum began in 1998 as an alternative vacation destination.  They have beautiful but simple cabanas located directly on a white sandy beach, looking out over the blue Caribbean.  EcoTulum believes in a truly holistic experience; the cabins are environmentally friendly, open air cabanas.  They do not have air conditioning and electricity is turned off at 11PM.  Visitors can enjoy free yoga classes, swim in the sea, hike in the rainforest, or explore ancient Mayan archaeological sites.  The EcoTulum experience is quite different from your average Caribbean cruise.

EcoTulum is not finished though.  This year they decided to host college volunteers for a reduced price to experience a unique volunteer service trip that they will never forget.  EcoTulum’s proximity to the rainforest and Mayan ruins provides a wonderful opportunity for people to come and learn about biodiversity, ecological conservation, and Mayan culture.  Their first 2 volunteers arrive today for a week of exploration, learning, and lots of fun.  Their itinerary is as follows:

March 17: A two hour tour in the Bioregion to learn about the environment there, biodiversity, and the efforts to preserve the habitat.  The tour will be followed by snorkeling in the Cenote Dos Ojos, a naturally occurring well full of plant and animal life.  This area is of spiritual importance to the Mayan culture.
March 18 & 19: Volunteers will work with Flora, Fauna y Cultura.org, a local NGO.  They will work on several projects in the area of Playa del Carmen—Eco Park la Seiva; helping to preserve wildlife and natural habitats like the native turtles; beach cleanup programs; and learning about reforestation efforts. http://www.florafaunaycultura.org/
March 20: Visit the Mayan ruins in Tulum and learn about the history of Mayan culture. 
March 21: Free day.

EcoTulum began as an ordinary spa/resort but has decided to provide opportunities for college students to have an alternative spring break.  EcoTulum is not starting this program because it’s going to be a big moneymaker; the students pay very little to stay at the resort and participate in the activities.  The objective of hosting volunteers is also not for the work the students will provide; there is only so much you can do in a week.  Rather the focus is on educating and changing the lives of the volunteers and creating an appreciation for the environment.  If they can leave EcoTulum inspired by the natural beauty, and the biological and environmental wonders of the area, then the trip will have been a success.  Hopefully, the volunteers will take home a new perspective on the environment, weave these lessons into their daily lives, and educate others.  Maybe they will even decide to study ecology, or biology, or environmental law.  Raising environmental and ecological awareness, in the end, is the measure of success for this program. 

All inclusive vacations to Cancun may be common among college kids, but trips like that are redundant and cliche.  EcoTulum ecological service trips are really different; a once in a lifetime experience.  This is EcoTulum’s first trip, but they are ongoing, so if you are interested contact our service trip expert Sarah Maxwell.  You can read her blog here, which has a wealth of information on service trips to Tulum and Ulaa.  The EcoTulum resort is a wonderful resort that has decided to use some of its profits to fund a volunteer program, hosting students and providing a series of activities for ecological service and education.

Business Profile: Ulaa

In the past it seems as if the world’s greatest cities were the ultimate vacation destinations. New York, London, Paris, Rome. While these will surely continue to be huge draws for travellers, it seems the focus has shifted a bit. Urban populations continue to rise, and with that, nature becomes increasingly foreign and unfamiliar to so many people. Spending a week without blackberries, cell phones, and the Internet is difficult to come by (let alone without electricity!). So many people are so far removed from nature (including myself). Removing oneself from the daily stresses of life, “unplugging” from the modern world, has become a popular theme for vacationing. If you’re a businessman living in New York, why go to London for vacation, just another loud and crowded city? If you have grown up in Boston, a vacation in L.A. probably wouldn’t be that exciting.

I spent this past week at an organic farm and resort called Ulaa. This blog is part of The Enchanting Group, which owns Ulaa. It’s located in Chilean side of the Chile-Argentina border, in Patagonia. They have cabins, an organic farm, and it’s situated in the mountains overlooking a crystal-clear lake. Tourists can come and stay in their rustic cabins and enjoy the natural beauty at this remote location. They can participate in various sporting activities, such as kayaking, hiking, rock climbing, fishing, or just plain relaxing by the lake. And you can eat home-cooked meals with ingredients grown here on the farm.

And we ate well. We helped out around the farm and made homemade jams with the blackberries we picked; we made salads with fresh tomatoes and cucumbers; and we cooked some flavorful soups with potatoes, lentils, pumpkin, and garlic. We even went fishing from a canoe, and caught a trout, which we baked for dinner. Ulaa is a wonderful place.

But it takes a lot of work to maintain the property and Ulaa needs help developing the organic farm. I asked the caretaker of Ulaa, Martin, what was the single most important thing he needed to help expand and he said it was people to work the farm. There are apples and plums that fall to the ground without people to pick them up; blackberries remain on the trees because there’s no one to pick them; and it wouldn’t make sense to invest in more crops until they can get more help.

So, The Enchanting Group, could remain content with keeping Ulaa as a wonderful place where tourists can come and enjoy the nature and the local attractions. But they have decided to create a second arm of Ulaa. In order to further develop the organic farm, Ulaa would like to welcome volunteers to stay in their cabins for free, and in exchange, commit to working on the farm. Organic farms like Ulaa have been growing in number and popularity.

At Ulaa, and other organic farms listed on the World Wide Organization of Organic Farms (WWOOF), people have the opportunity to stay at organic farms. There are many people out there who will love to visit such an untouched area in Patagonia. They can do so, and also get the opportunity to learn about sustainable agriculture, organic food, and a relaxing, slow lifestyle. If they have the motivation to work hard on the farm, they can do all this without charge.

It’s a win-win situation. Ulaa can get working hands to help expand their organic farm, and travellers looking to get away can take advantage of this opportunity and relax in solitude without the price of a week in Paris.

Business Profile: La Fageda

In last week’s business profile we analyzed Barefoot College, the Indian non-profit that trains the rural poor on sustainable economic development.  In this week’s profile, we take a look at La Fageda, a for-profit business employing the mentally ill.

La Fageda is a dairy farm that was founded in Girona, Spain (near Barcelona) by a man named Cristobal Colon (Spanish for Christopher Columbus).  He worked at a mental hospital, helping the patients with useless tasks, making crafts and ashtrays.  He realized that these people could be employed to produce marketable goods instead of just wasting their time.  He started a dairy farm, employing the mentally ill patients he was working with.  La Fageda has grown successfully in Spain and its yogurt and milk products are widely popular in the region.  With over 30 million units of  yogurt sold per year, they now only trail Danone and Nestle in yogurt sales. 

La Fageda employs 210 people, over half of which are mentally or pyschologically ill.  It partners with mental hospitals and pyschiatric wards, taking in the patients, providing job training and employment.  The workers are paid a good wage, and have the option of living on the property or on their own.  If and when it becomes possible, the employees are reincorporated into general society.  On-site mental treatment is available to all workers.  The wonderful thing about La Fageda is that the employees not only receive mental health treatment, but they are given a purpose in life. 

La Fageda Employees

Make no mistake, La Fageda is a for-profit business.  It’s yogurt and milk products are sold because of their high quality, not out of the charity of shoppers.  Most people don’t even know that their delicious yogurt comes from a company employing the mentally ill.  This dairy farm would not survive if it was not profitable.  However, Cristobal Colon is not in this business solely for profit, which is what makes him different than the traditional entrepreneur.  He is as much interested in social change as he is in the bottom line (the double bottom line theory).  Providing employment, income, mental health, and dignity to the mentally ill is Colon’s first priority.  Turning a profit is the vehicle that allows La Fageda to achieve these positive results. 

Colon believes that focusing on his potential employees first, before starting the business, was intricate to success.  “La Fageda is a company that was constructed in reverse.  Its first asset was the workers, a group that needed to be employed…Subsequently the company was created.  La Fageda demonstrates that a company that starts with people, putting people before profits, can grow to be a strong organization.”  Reinvesting its profits into not just expanding but also mental health services for its employees is what separates Colon from the standard businessman.  Building the business around the people is not the traditional way of structuring a business.  But then again, focusing on societal benefits before profits is not the traditional way of running a business. 

*The Quote of Cristobal Colon, as well as more information on La Fageda, can be found in The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change the World, a book by John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan. 

Business Profile: Barefoot College

A new segment that will become a regular feature on this blog will be the Business Profile.  I will take an in depth look at an example of a social business – it’s structure, its financing, its goals, how it works, how it helps the community, etc.  This feature will appear each week.

 

Back in the first post on this blog I discussed Barefoot College.  This is a non-profit that was started in India by a man named Bunker Roy.  India is a land of many hierarchies; where it is not possible for certain people to receive advanced degrees from prestigious universities.  Bunker Roy setup this non-profit to bypass the necessity of degrees and certificates for achieving success.  Barefoot College believes that ordinary people can be self-reliant and can solve complex problems on their own.  It believes in the power of local communities and villages. 

 

Therefore Barefoot College teaches the poor how to develop their own communities, their own way.  All too often, large aid organizations drop in on desperate communities and dictate how to develop a community without taking into consideration local tradition or local knowledge.  Bunker Roy and Barefoot (with obvious resentment towards the elite telling people what to do) believe that “professionals” exist within communities, and highly educated urban professionals are not needed to develop communities.  The rural poor are able to learn how to solve complex problems without needing to be educated, or even literate.

 

The most important factor in successful development, Barefoot argues, is meeting basic needs: clean water, health, education, and work.  Not only are these issues solved by the poor themselves, but they are taught to tackle even tougher problems to increase their quality of life.  Often illiterate and lacking formal education, these villagers are audaciously trained to be solar engineers, local doctors, teachers, and architects.  There is even a children’s parliament in their school.  As the only non-profit that operates for the rural poor and also maintained by the rural poor, students of Barefoot College are responsible for:

 

• Providing solar electricity for over 870 schools across India
• Transforming over 500 hectares of wasteland into usable farmland
• Establishing over 200 health centers in rural India
• Building over 200 homes
• Creating handicraft jobs for over 300 women

 

Picture from Barefoot College website 

 

As a traditional non-profit, Barefoot College gets most of its funding from international aid organizations and the grants from the Indian government.  But they develop with their own local strategies, from the ground up.  Large aid organizations and the government do not have a say in how to develop these communities.  In an effort to promote transparency in India, Barefoot College is also one of the few community organizations that conducts an entirely open audit of its finances for the public to see. 

 

Bunker Roy takes pride in action instead of talk, in results instead of theories.  On the Barefoot College website, it says rather bluntly that there are certain people that should not participate in Barefoot College – “those who hold paper degrees and call themselves experts.  Those who hide behind those degrees and qualifications and are unable to work with their hands.”  And as for the people that should participate?  “Those who are drop outs, cop outs, wash outs and rejected by society because they cannot pass an exam and show a degree next to their name.  Those who have no possibility of getting the lowest of the low government job. They have no choice but to stay and the investment in the training is not wasted. They will earn the respect of the communities they serve because of the service they will provide.” 

 

Redefining traditional theories on international development, Barefoot College is making incredible progress for the rural poor in India.