Luis Antonio Chavez (Co-founder and Manager) has over 15 years experience of working in the tourist industry & has previously owned 2 independent tour companies. He also has experience of working with children having set up & run an orphan community project in Venezuela. He is from Huaraz, Peru & he wanted to set up this organisation because he is sensitive about the suffering of the people of Perú.

Jay Chavez (Co-founder and Manager) previously volunteered with a conservation project in Malaysia, & a school & an animal refuge in Bolivia (after a few years working as an Administrator for an environmental company). She is from Shropshire, England & has been dreaming of doing something like this for years because it is a whole lot more satifying than filing & health and safety reports!

Carmen Chávez Rincón (Administrator and Spanish Teacher) has 14 years experience in education and has also worked with social projects related to education in rural areas. They say that charity starts at home, it certainly does with us because Carmen is Luis' sister! Although employing her was certainly not an act of charity on our part - more like the other way around! She likes working at Traveller Not Tourist as she finds it more gratifying than teaching in Government run schools.

Anna (Volunteer Co-ordinator) is originally from the US, but has spent most of the last six years living on continents other than her own.  Her work has varied from health education in southern Africa to waiting tables in New Zealand.  She is excited that her path has led her to Peru, and she is enthusiastic about welcoming new volunteers to all of the great things Arequipa (and, specifically, Traveller Not Tourist) has to offer.

Roxana (Tour Operator) has recently joined our team and we are very excited to have her working with us! She studied Tourism and Hotel Management and has been working in tourism since her first year of study. She says she believes "that Perú is wonderful country" and she loves to help people get to know it better. She is interested in charity, having worked on projects before, which is one of the reasons she chose to join us.

OUR VISION AND MISSION

Our VISION for the future is to build an organisation which is self-sustaining and also able to sustain the projects we choose to support whilst raising awareness and attracting donations and volunteers.

Our MISSION is to give foreigners visiting Peru the opportunity to be involved in the true peruvian reality and Peruvians the chance to lift themselves out of poverty and believe in the chance of a better world, and then create it.

Within this mission we also have certain criteria by which we run our organisation, these are:

Our primary concern are the needs of the children we work with

We work hard to ensure that volunteers who work with us can have a rewarding experience, using the skills and passions they bring with them to enrich the lives of children living in poverty (without having to pay large sums of money).

We are a non-profit organisation. All donations are used directly in projects or for legitimate organisation needs. The minimal administration fee we charge is used to employ the staff we need to run the organisation efficiently (on reasonable wages).

We take volunteer complaints/comments/suggestions seriously and work with our volunteers to ensure that we are continuously improving the organisation.

We provide a safe, supportive environment for our volunteers whilst simultaneously allowing them to experience the reality of poverty in Peru and help to relieve it.