Mission

As a professor and lecturer on international development studies, I like to leave you with more than photos and contacts with drivers and waiters.

I have spent many years living and working in Africa and the one thing that has always struck me is that most Westerners visit Africa as tourists -missing the essential part of the experience. Granted they see the spectacular scenery, wild animals and beautiful beaches, yet, most learn very little about the lives, politics and cultural diversity of these countries and their people. They leave feeling that they saw everything from a distance and learned very little about the local context shaping the lives the people and environment.

The mission of Global Education Safaris (GES) is “to provide opportunities that increase awareness to the issues of capacity building, advocacy, self-empowerment, extreme challenges to economic development, and the environment surrounding neighbors in our Global Village. The underlying philosophy of empowerment that permeates the programs that GES also offers chances to take proactive approaches that will truly create an enabling environment for sustainable development, where people can access and then re-create opportunities to both excel personally and improve their communities. This is only possible if the people that ultimately benefit from a program are viewed not as recipients of the exchange, but as equal participants in dialouge, designing, and implementing programs to suit their needs with our help.

Please join us for an exciting trip of a lifetime and learn some interesting things thing about Africa in the process!

Jonathan Berkey

Founder and Director for Global Development Safaris