In honor of Women's History Month, I have been interviewing women who are leading the way in creative travel -- back road, off-the-map and Slow Adventures. The best part of seeking out women to interview is that I haven't had to look very far to find inspired women traveling the world, breaking ground, and feeding our sense of adventure. After some great conversations, I devote this blog to honoring one of the women that I encountered this month.
As a leader in travel and conservation, Susan Hannah is one of those women who, you get the feeling, has always been at the front of the trail. In graduate school she studied with the legendary Margaret Mead and since then she has worked with the Wildlife Conservation Society, CARE USA, and the Intrepid Museum Foundation where she has spearheaded programs across the globe. Travel, undoubtedly, is among the catalysts for the work that she does. While addressing a global health initiative in a speech entitled Impatient Optimist, Bill and Melinda Gates got close to the heart of it. They said, "one of the big reasons for inequities is that the people who see the worst of it don't have the resources to defeat it. And the people who have the resources don't often see the worst of it." Like many of us in the field, Hannah looks to tourism as way to personify that "it," to connect resources and perspectives, and to reach in from both sides and hopefully meet somewhere in the middle. As she describes, Sustainable Tourism, at its best, "provides hard currency, jobs, and connects people to really understand the needs of a community."
Hannah began traveling in Africa in 1970 and fell in love with the land and the people as she was falling in love with what would be her life's work in conservation and development. While her initial focus was on wildlife conservation it didn't take her long to see that the programs and initiatives she was creating would need to take a more holistic approach because, as she says, "In order to protect animals and the environment, you need to take care of people." Her subsequent efforts have centered on a range of more broadly-connected issues including water, environment, health, education and development.
In her latest initiative, Susan has joined forces with Nurturing Minds, a U.S.-based NGO of which she is a board member, and their Tanzanian partner SEGA (Secondary Education for Girls Advancement) to create the Sega Secondary School for Girls, in Tanzania. At its core, the school is built on the belief that education helps girls succeed as individuals and, at the same time, raise the quality of life in their communities.
When asked about her philosophy of travel, Hannah responds, "They say a picture is worth 1000 words. Well, being there is worth 1,000 pictures." Then she continues with a list:
* Fun
* Education
* Eye opener
* A way to get people involved.
At it's best, she reminds me, "Going off the beaten path can be as much about what we do as tourists as where we go." As she sees it, engaged and thoughtful travel can provide an endless array of "fresh," "authentic" adventures, and just as importantly, can play an important role in deepening connections to ourselves and others.
Travel is a strong catalyst for change. And it is precisely the openness to transformation -- on a personal and collective level -- that I have seen this month by women leaders like Hannah, that inspires me to continually question how we travel, where travel, and why we travel. I closed the interview by asking how she thinks a traveler's perspective can change between boarding their departure flight and returning home. Something sparks her memory of the Impatient Optimist speech and she restates, in her own words, a call to action. It is simply by luck that we were born here with the opportunities that we have had. It is our job not just to take advantage of those opportunities but to provide opportunities for others, no matter where they were born.