It will, if you travel with us!

We invite you to take a trip of a lifetime over the new year. Come on a Reality Tour to Cuba or Ecuador.

Building bridges and international solidarity is increasingly important, as we resist the current administration’s nationalist rhetoric and divisive foreign policies. And for more than 30 years, our Reality Tours program has been doing just that – offering thousands of our travelers an opportunity for alternative, sustainable and socially responsible travel.

Our delegations offer you the chance to learn about unfamiliar cultures, meet with people from all walks of life, and establish meaningful relationships with people from other countries, all while promoting the local economy and wellbeing of our hosts.

This holiday season we are organizing two dynamic delegations: one to Cuba and the other to Ecuador.

We invite you to join us and dive into the complexity of world issues, tap into established local networks, access insider knowledge, learn a lot, have a lot of fun, and make new friends and allies along the way.

Be a bridge of peace and understanding!  Bring in the New Year with us on a Reality Tour.

P.S. Global Exchange’s Reality Tours was just highlighted by Yes! Magazine, “12 Tips for More Equitable Travel.”

New Year’s in Cuba; marking 60 years of the Cuban Revolution


December 28, 2019 – January 6, 2020

Join us as we celebrate New Year’s in Cuba and the completion of the 60th Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution! This unique delegation will examine Cuba at a crossroads in the arts, culture, community, sustainability and politics. We will begin in Havana to ring in the New Year. From there, we will make our way to cities like Cojimar (Hemingway’s setting for Old Man and The Sea), Matanzas, and Varadero. We’ll stop in Cienfuegos, and then power on to Santa Clara and, finally, to the enchanting walled city of Camaguey.

New Years in Ecuador: Environmental Justice from the Andes to the Amazon


December 28, 2019 – January 5, 2020

Travel to the Ecuadorian highlands and the Amazon basin for a deep-dive into the Indigenous-Led grassroots resistance to the exploitative toxic practices of extractive industries. You will be introduced to some of the most successful local and international efforts to bring environmental and social justice to the Andes and the Amazon.

 

The Trump Administration is dragging us into the past with the imposition of new restrictions on Americans who want to travel to Cuba.

The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced that the “people-to-people” category of legal travel to Cuba will be eliminated starting today, June 5, 2019.

These new policies are dead wrong.

We are working with our allies and legal advisors to overcome these policies, and the good news is that you can still travel to Cuba — legally — with Global Exchange. 

There are still several categories of legal travel to Cuba including university-sponsored study abroad trips, journalistic activity, professional research and meetings, support for the Cuban people, and others.

Please contact us if you have question about these categories and ways that you can continue to legally travel to Cuba with Global Exchange. Contact Drea Hightower, at 415-575-5527 or email drea@globalexchange.org.

Global Exchange has worked to end the travel ban and embargo since 1990. We have organized legal travel and exchanges for tens of thousands of people over the last two decades and will continue to do so.

Join us now to travel to Cuba. Cuba is a fascinating and complex country with a unique history, rich culture, and beautiful people that you deserve to meet and interact with — in spite of Trump’s restrictions.

Please continue to check our website for the latest and most up-to-date information.

P.S. Tune in to KPFA tomorrow, June 6th at 7am Pacific Time to learn more about the travel restrictions released by the Trump Administration.

Over the years, Global Exchange has enjoyed collaborating with Morehouse College, a liberal arts college in Atlanta, Georgia, to provide students and professors with a pan-African global experience. From Cuba to Ghana, we have explored socio-political, economic, artistic, and historical representations of race and ethnicity that have led to fruitful cross-border collaborations.

We are thrilled to have built upon this tradition by sending our first Morehouse custom Reality Tour to Ecuador, a country whose relatively small Afro-descendent population (just over 7 percent) faces disproportionate rates of poverty and unemployment while contributing tremendous artistic, athletic, and intellectual talent to mainstream society.

Our group met with Afro-Ecuadorian leaders working at various intersections of racial, economic, and environmental justice. José Chala, one of five Afro-Ecuadorian National Assembly members in an assembly of 137 people, spoke about his platform to increase Afro-Ecuadorian representation – from challenging Eurocentric educational curricula to the (re)naming of monuments and plazas.

Morehouse student with José Chala in Quito.

From Quito, we traveled to Mr. Chala’s hometown region of the Chota Valley, where Afro-descendants make up over 75 percent of the population. Morehouse students exchanged with their high-school aged peers, playing bilingual hangman and trading dance moves. The school’s slogan “We are guardians of our ancestral cultural patrimony”prompted a reflection on the connection between the preservation of cultural heritage, the formation of group identity, and the advancement of inter-generational struggles for justice. A participate noted that in the U.S. this is also known as “staying woke”.

The Chota community welcomed the students warmly. The local Women’s Community Tourism Project arranged for homestays, providing students an opportunity to share meals and conversation with Choteño families. Ileana Caravali, a young Choteña leader showed the group incredible hospitality and was an inspiring example of female-led economic development through sustainable tourism in her community.

From Quito to Chota, the trip was infused with the Afro-Ecuadorian rhythm of the Bomba. The unifying nature of the drum across the African diaspora remained a present theme throughout, and the Morehouse group learned how to make the Bomba drum from Don Cristobal Barahona, how to play it from Limber Valencia, how to dance to it from Rosa Mosquera and Casa Ochun, and experienced it in a community gathering with La Banda Mocha, a world-renowned Choteño Bomba band.

The trip was also marked by a call to action: for international solidarity amongst the black diaspora and those allied to it.  Miles Johnson, a sophomore at Morehouse College, reflects:

Many Afro-Ecuadorians are facing the same issues that African Americans are facing, however their problems and the problems of many other Afro-Latinos are not often recognized when discussions of systems against people of color arise within the United States. The trip showed me the importance of learning and understanding the culture, history, and current challenges of all individuals of the African Diaspora.

We are grateful to our Global Exchange Ecuador-based program leader, Yury Guerra, for his incredible work to make this trip possible. 

Summer is almost here, but it’s not too late to sign-up for the trip of a lifetime! There’s no need to shelve that tour you wanted to take but never got around to planning.

We have three life-changing Reality Tours planned for June and July, and we have space for you.

Learn about the Indigenous rights movement in Chiapas, Mexico. Experience the beautiful highlands and Amazon of Ecuador, while meeting with local communities working for social and environmental justice. Learn about the newest wave of popular struggle in Haiti, as hundreds of thousands of Haitians put their lives on the line to build an inclusive, equitable, just, and sustainable Haiti.

This summer, see the world, meet the people, learn the facts, make a difference!

We hope you’ll join us!

Chiapas: Indigenous Rights & Environmental Justice

July 1 – 9, 2019

Travel to Chiapas to learn about one of the most successful Indigenous rights movements in the Americas – the Zapatista uprising and its ongoing struggle for Indigenous autonomy. From a base in the colonial town of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, we will travel to surrounding communities to speak with indigenous leaders, artists, educators, and students. This delegation will also include a focus on the ways in which Mexico’s criminal justice system disadvantages Indigenous women and the collectives fighting back; on new and intensified environmental assaults; and on U.S. bound migration from Central America through Chiapas.

Ecuador: Social and Environmental Justice from the Andes to the Amazon

July 12 – 20, 2019

Travel to the Ecuadorian highlands and the Amazon basin for a deep-dive into grassroots, Indigenous, and women-led efforts to resist the exploitative toxic practices of extractive industries. You will be introduced to some of the most successful local and international efforts to bring environmental and social justice to the Andes and the Amazon while enjoying Ecuador’s rich biodiversity and cultural traditions.

Haiti’s Popular Uprising: A Call for International Solidarity

June 2 – 11, 2019

Hundreds of thousands of Haitians have taken to the streets in mass mobilizations demanding accountability from Haiti’s political class accused of squandering billions of dollars in proceeds from Venezuela’s discounted PetroCaribe oil program. Chanting “we are hungry, we can’t take it anymore,” protesters are demanding that the thoroughly corrupt and fraudulently elected president, Jovenel Moise, resign immediately. Their demands have been met with vicious repression. It is an urgent moment for international solidarity to break the silence around Haiti. Join us on this timely trip where we will meet with a range of local Haitian citizens and organizations stepping up against tremendous adversity to build an inclusive, equitable, just, and sustainable Haiti.

 

There are still spots remaining on this year’s annual Day of the Dead trip to Oaxaca, Mexico!  Join us from October 28th to November 5th, 2019 to experience one of the most renown Day of the Dead celebrations in the Americas.

Curious about what you might experience?  Here are some thoughts from a past participant, Catherine Suarez, a Spanish Instructor at Las Positas College in California who traveled with Global Exchange in 2014.

_______________________________________________________________________________

21007_10155732792905613_5524048083122057307_nOur trip with Global Exchange to Oaxaca, Mexico was more than a typical educational opportunity. The participants were able to actively participate in many authentic aspects of everyday Oaxacan life associated with the preparation for the Days of the Dead. In addition, the group experienced social processes and was able to participate in meetings and workshops about sustainability, indigenous people’s human rights and the historical importance of corn in the Valley of Oaxaca.

Our group leader, Juan de Dios Gómez Ramírez, a Doctor of Sociology, provided us with much more than the basic information about the Valley of Oaxaca, its people and their social struggles. The level of information and the way in which it was delivered resembled a college-level course. I purchased a notebook in the Mexico City airport “in case I needed to take a few notes”. By the end of the study/travel program, I had completely filled the notebook with information that I cannot wait to incorporate into my lessons and future presentations.

We met with several authors and also attended a week-long Book Fair in the Zocalo where we were able to take part in workshops, presentations by authors from different states of Mexico, Cuba and South America, and search for rare and difficult-to-find books. For example, I have been researching Afro Caribbean Peoples, including Afro Cubans, Afro Puerto Ricans, Afro Dominicans and Afro Mexicans. I was able to purchase several books about Afro Cubans and Afro Mexicans at the fair. The Book Fair was dedicated to the memories of Mexican author José Agustín and Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez.

At around midnight on November 1st, while we were in the cemetery, one observer commented that he “will never view death the same way again.” I think that he spoke for many of the people in the cemetery that night. If I could edit his quote, I would add that our group will “never think about human rights and the importance of sustainability, especially corn, for the people of the state of Oaxaca the same way again.”

 

 

Yesterday, JPMorgan Chase announced that the company “will no longer bank the private prison industry.” [1]

As one of the largest financial institutions in the world, JPMorgan Chase’s decision will have immediate and significant impact on private prison companies, which currently hold the majority of detained immigrants. [2] 

Your voice and your energy helped make this victory possible. Thanks to you, our campaign demanding JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo stop profiting from immigrant detention and private prisons is celebrating a momentous victory. 

Thank you for petitioning and protesting. Thank you for joining the worldwide effort to stop the flow of money to corporations profiting from imprisonment. 

Now it’s time to turn up the heat on Wells Fargo. The big bank hasn’t yet committed to cutting off money to private prisons and immigrant detention centers.  

We will continue to stand with the #FamiliesBelongTogether coalition and demand Wells Fargo end their financing of CoreCivic and Geo Group Inc.

If you haven’t yet, sign our petition here. Once you’ve taken action, share with your friends and family so they can join the call. 

Stay tuned for future actions and alerts!

[1] “JPMorgan Backs Away from Private Prison Finance”, U.S. News & World Report, March 5, 2019

[2] “JPMorgan Chase to Stop Serving Private Prisons,” Democracy Now, March 6, 2019

 

Here is your chance to support limits on U.S. gun exports to Mexico that contribute to the unprecedented levels of gun violence there.

Call on your member of Congress to act and do the right thing.

Urge him/her to sign the “Dear Colleague” letter (text is below) circulated by Congressmen Grijalva and Lowenthal to prevent guns exported from the United States from getting into the hands of human rights abusers or organized crime, especially in Mexico. 

These legally-exported weapons have already been used in massacres, disappearances, and by security forces that collude with criminal organizations or those who have committed serious human rights violations.

Thank you for taking action.

===========================================

Text of the letter open for Congressional signatures circulated by Representatives Raul Grijalva and Alan Lowenthal:

February 2019

Dear Secretary Pompeo:

We are concerned that your department’s plan to aggressively promote American weapons exports without a proper tracking system for end users will continue to result in weapon transfers to Mexico that arm security forces with ties to criminal organizations or that have committed serious human rights violations. We call on you to implement a comprehensive and transparent tracking system that ensures these weapons do not end up stolen, lost or placed in unauthorized hands, and request information pertaining to current exports.

The legal export of weapons and explosives from the United States to Mexico reached more than $122 million between 2015 and 2017, more than 12 times the amount of those exports between 2002-2004.[1] Legally exported weapons from the U.S. have already been used in violence, disappearances and massacres against civil society. The local police who attacked and disappeared 43 Ayotzinapa students in September 2014 were armed with AR-6530 rifles supplied by Colt Defense Industries.[2] The Mexican Army has disclosed that more than 20,000 firearms obtained by Mexican local and federal police went missing or were stolen since 2006.[3] These examples demonstrate the urgent need to ensure U.S. weapons do not land in the wrong hands.

We are concerned that an export license for the U.S. gun producer Sig Sauer to sell up to $266 million worth of firearms to the Mexican military, issued by the State Department in 2015, may reinforce the newly expanded role of the Mexican military in civilian law enforcement, or result in arming police or military units that are colluding with organized crime and have committed serious abuses. We request information from the State Department on how you will ensure this does not occur.

Firearm export controls should be subject to more rigorous oversight, tracking and accountability. This should include a policy to consult the Department’s existing INVEST database of alleged human rights violations by foreign security units, designed for use in implementing the Leahy Law, for license applications to export arms to foreign police and military units, and ensuring that such applications name all prospective end user units, not only central distribution units. Traditionally, the State Department has been tasked with reviewing and granting export licensing. Transitioning that task to the Commerce Department limits the ability to verify all prospective end user units, not only central distribution units.

We request that your department conduct an analysis to determine whether U.S.-manufactured firearms in the possession of Mexican police in Guerrero, Veracruz, Tamaulipas, Chihuahua, and Michoacán states were exported pursuant to a license that named these police as end users; if not, what steps is the Department is taking to address this issue.

Criminal organizations and human rights violators in Mexico and elsewhere should not be benefiting from a lax U.S. firearms export policy that puts civilians at risk. Every life lost is a tragedy and we must do everything within our power to ensure U.S. policies are not needlessly endangering lives around the world.

We look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Raúl M. Grijalva                          Alan Lowenthal
Member of Congress                      Member of Congress  

[1] Mexican Commission for the Defense of Human Rights and Stop U.S. Arms to Mexico, Gross Human Rights Violations: The Legal and Illegal Gun Trade to Mexico, August 2018, https://stopusarmstomexico.org/gross-human-rights-abuses-the-legal-and-illegal-gun-trade-to-mexico/.

[2] American Friends Service Committee, Where the Guns Go: U.S. Policy and the Crisis of Violence in Mexico, 2016.

[3] Mexican Commission for the Defense of Human Rights and Stop U.S. Arms to Mexico, Gross Human Rights Violations: The Legal and Illegal Gun Trade to Mexico, August 2018, https://stopusarmstomexico.org/gross-human-rights-abuses-the-legal-and-illegal-gun-trade-to-mexico/.

It’s that time of year again. 2018 has drawn to a close and we look ahead to what the new year could bring. We resolve to make changes, from improving our health to investing in our relationships, ditching the smartphones, engaging in community, and learning new skills. What if you could tackle all these resolutions in one?

We invite you to travel with us — a human rights organization. We’ll give you the opportunity to take a deep dive into the complexity of world issues, to tap into established local networks, to access insider knowledge, to learn a lot, to have a lot of fun and make new friends along the way.

So make 2019 the year you travel, and let us help make it the one where you return healthier, more connected, more knowledgeable, and more empowered. 

Here are four brand-new trips to kick-off the new year:

Vietnam: Beyond War’s Toxic Legacy

February 21 March 3, 2019

Explore the quaint and history packed streets of Old Hanoi, sampling the freshest and most complex flavors of Vietnamese cuisine along the way. Enjoy an overnight onboard a cruise in Halong Bay, visiting floating villages and small beaches while meeting with local villagers and enjoying fresh seafood. Explore the legacy of war, from trails and tunnels used decades ago to current projects addressing remaining cluster bombs and lingering health impacts of Agent Orange — and so much more! **This delegation is confirmed **

Bolivia: Indigenous Identity

February 22 – March 3, 2019

On this 10-day program from Santa Cruz to La Paz and amazing places in between, we will meet with Indigenous communities on the front-lines of the struggles against resource extraction, water privatization and climate migration. We will end our journey by taking part in the Anata Andino, an Indigenous carnival festival with over 100 rural communities participating in giving thanks to mother earth.

US/Mexico Border: Migration, Militarization & Human Rights

April 7 – 13, 2019

Participants will explore how US immigration policies and trade agreements have impacted immigration and migration. We’ll learn about the impacts of decisions made by the current US administration, meet with diverse groups, community organizations and individuals from both sides of the border to hear firsthand about the reality of the Southern Arizona borderlands.

Japan: Following Our Waters

May 8 – 14, 2019

Did you know that Crystal Geyser is taking spring water from Mt.Shasta, packaging it in plastic bottles and shipping it all the way to Japan? Join a group of Mt. Shasta environmental activists to see, firsthand, where our waters have gone while engaging with Japanese community leaders.

We hope you’ll join us in 2019 to celebrate 30 years of building a connected global civil society dedicated to a peaceful and just future for all!

 

Tune in this Thursday, Sept. 20th, for “Ending the Drug War: An International Challenge” a live-streamed Facebook webinar with experts and social movement leaders from Colombia, Honduras, Mexico, the United States and Canada.

After more than half a century of global drug prohibition, the evidence is clear: the U.S.-led international war on drugs has failed. Rather than keep our communities safe and healthy, drug war prohibition has hit the poor, people of color, and immigrants hardest.

This Thursday, September 20th at 5pm (PT), we will talk about the deadly impact of the drug war across the Western Hemisphere, its impact on immigrants, and our evolving understanding of true national and human security.

Ideas are changing and new policy initiatives are on the horizon. All speakers on this webinar supported and participated in the 2016 Caravan from Honduras to the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Drugs in NYC.
Donald McPherson from the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition on national reform models.
Zara Snapp from Instituto RIA on drug policy options for the new Mexican government.
Alex Sierra from Centro de Estudios Socio Jurídicos Latinoamericanos on the status of drug policy reform/peace process in Colombia.
Laura Carlsen from the Americas Program on U.S. Military Policy and the new Mexican government.
Miguel Villegas from Reverdeser Colectivo (Mexico) on a new regional paradigm.
Felix Valentin from OFRANEH (Honduras) on the brutal impact of drug war policies and U.S. support for the repressive government in Honduras.

 

After more than half a century of global drug prohibition, the evidence is very clear: the war on drugs has failed. Far from keeping our communities safe and healthy, it has been used to wage a war on the poor, on people of color, and, increasingly, on immigrants.

Please join us for a one-hour conversation livestreamed on Global Exchange’s Facebook this Thursday from 5 – 6pm PT. Meet a group of experts who have hands-on experience in transforming failed drug war policies with innovative, evidence-based public health and social justice-centered alternatives.

The past decade has seen encouraging developments, particularly at the state and local level. Recreational marijuana is now legal and regulated in nine states. Thirty states plus the District of Columbia allow for its medicinal use. Cities including Oakland, San Francisco, Sacramento and L.A. are implementing programs to increase racial equity in the marijuana industry. Twenty-two states have decriminalized or removed the threat of jail time for simple possession of small amounts of marijuana. And there is spreading bipartisan support for legalizing syringe access; rapid expansion of programs to reduce overdose fatalities; and growing law enforcement interest in harm reduction approaches to policing drug users and markets.

We must continue to turn the tide. More Americans remain behind bars for drug offenses than the number of all Americans incarcerated in the 1980s. Black and Latino people continue to make up a massively disproportionate number of this population, despite using and selling drugs at similar rates as white people. Accidental and preventable drug overdoses continue to kill tens of thousands of Americans — more people than are killed by firearms. And, in the face of a deadly opioid crisis, the Trump administration proposes more of the tried-and-failed same: tough-on-drugs law enforcement that scapegoats immigrants and a just-say-no drug prevention approach, both of which prevent access to life-saving services.

Please join:

Emily Harris from Ella Baker Center for Human Rights on how punitive drug policies have fed the horror of mass incarceration, and the path to reform the criminal justice system.

Armando Gudino from Drug Policy Alliance on how drug policy has been used as a tool to criminalize the poor and communities of color, and on the link between drug war mass detentions and the war on immigrants.

Patt Denning from Harm Reduction Therapy Center on the public health consequences of the “just-say-no” approach to drug use, and how shifting to a harm reduction model is an indispensable part of reducing the harms drugs can cause to individuals and to society.

Chris Wakefield & Kaine Cherry from The Hood Incubator on new efforts to address historic racial inequities that resurfaced in the legal marijuana industry.