Giving Compass' Take:

• Sustainability Adventure is a program of the NGO Forum ViA, that sends gap year travelers to various countries to use social media to report on SDG progress. 

• How does this program help raise awareness about the SDGs? What are the intended outcomes of sharing community stories with travelers' networks? 

• Read about the importance of sustainability with volunteer tourism.

Sustainability Adventure is a program that sends gap-year travelers around the globe to report on how different non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are implementing the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. A program of Vienna-based NGO Forum ViA, it has dubbed the travelers “SDG reporters” and shares their dispatches from the developing world.

Forum ViA founders Valentina Aversano-Dearborn and her husband Matt discovered that having travelers write dispatches from sustainability initiatives had unearthed problems that would otherwise have been hidden, such as an unintended consequence of child labor protections.

Forum ViA founders Valentina Aversano-Dearborn and her husband Matt discovered that having travelers write dispatches from sustainability initiatives had unearthed problems that would otherwise have been hidden, such as an unintended consequence of child labor protections.

During their year-long adventure, the SDG reporters partner with up to three schools, typically in Austria and the U.S. They engage with the students and teachers through “challenges” that implore the students to think about sustainability. They eschew air travel, which slows their travel and allows them to explore communities off the beaten path, and cut down on carbon emissions.

Forum ViA harnessed the power and influence of young people on social media in order to craft a multifaceted, engaging, and educational project. The Sustainability Adventure program is empowering young people, giving a voice to marginalized communities, and highlighting stories from the world that might otherwise have been ignored.

Read the full article about Sustainability Adventure by Alessandra Bautze at Shareable.