In 2023, the 3rd edition of the WTM Latin America Responsible Tourism Award takes place, and it has a special flavor for us this year. Raizes has been picked as one of the finalist businesses because of the voluntourism itineraries of the Dona do Meu Fluxo (DMF) Owner of my Flow) Project!
WTM believes that “local and global incentives and directions in various measures which value more responsible tourism have the power to change the course of our industry.” Therefore, it conceived this initiative that promotes inspiring stories of the travel and tourism sector for the promotion of sustainable development in Latin America.
The award seeks to bring the most urgent themes for the conservation of the environment, inclusion and diversity, fair economic development, and promotion of relations between tourists and their travel destination, in six categories:
🔸Better solutions for plastic waste management
🔸More meaningful connections
🔸Best models of local shopping, crafts, and food
🔸Addressing climate change
🔸Better solutions for promoting diversity and inclusion
🔸Better initiatives for nature conservation
Raízes Sustainable Development appears as a finalist in the Best solutions for plastic waste management category of the 3rd edition of the WTM Latin America Responsible Tourism Award. Check out below what the description says about the topic.
“Plastic waste is at the heart of one of the major environmental crises affecting the health of our planet, and the tourism industry generates waste through the use of single-use plastics. The sector also suffers from waste generated by other activities, which pollute water bodies and beaches, contributing to the accumulation of litter in many destinations. Localities and tourism companies can deal with waste by banning single-use materials, removing plastic from public spaces and nature, and disposing off of it safely. There should also be support for initiatives that recycle and isolate plastic waste, generating enough revenue to pay for its collection and proper removal from the environment. The oceans require urgent, large-scale action. Therefore, the award judges are looking for examples where a company or tourist destination has developed ways in order to remove plastic waste from the environment.”
A little more about the initiative that led to the Prize:
DMF (Owner of my Flow) is a social project owned by Raízes in partnership with Korui. Through workshops, we empower women and girls, and seek to combat menstrual poverty with the donation of menstrual cups. In the years 2019 and 2022, we carried out two expeditions with voluntourism itineraries (one each year, with a pause due to the pandemic) in the Brazilian Amazon, specifically in the states of Pará and Amazonas. The travelers were able to experience all the actions of the project, as well as interact with the affected women, getting to know the beauties of the local culture and nature.
“We see the voluntourism of Dona do Meu Fluxo (Owner of my Flow) as a creative solution in order to address beyond menstrual poverty, the issue of waste in more distant places, especially in the Amazon, which was where the project took place. In this case, tourism comes in as a tool to make a social project viable, which has this strong environmental appeal. The use of conventional sanitary pads generates about 5kgs of non-recyclable waste per year and per menstruating person, which includes plastics that take hundreds of years to decompose. Each donated collector can avoid 50kg of garbage (because it lasts up to 10 years), helping to preserve especially the rivers, given that, commonly, in riverside communities this sort of waste does not have a correct disposal destination, “says Mariana Madureira, director at Raízes.
With such initiatives, tourism acts as a tool to enable a project that, in addition to treating menstrual poverty, is also an ecological solution in order to deal with menstruation and reduce plastic waste that does not have a correct disposal destination in the north of the country.
Come see us!
The award ceremony will take place during WTM Latin America, at Expo Center Norte, in São Paulo Capital. It will be held on Tuesday, April 4 at 6 p.m. at the Explore Transformation Theatre. We will be waiting for you!
