EnRoute is an organization that prides itself on critical reflection and constant growth. Below you’ll find our policy statements on a variety of issues that matter to our clients, colleagues and stakeholders around the world.
OUR INCLUSION STATEMENT
EnRoute wholeheartedly welcomes all people, regardless of their age, culture, disabilities, ethnic origin, gender, gender identity, marital status, nationality, race, religion, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status.
As a part of our commitment to foster an environment of trust with our clients, we abide by these guiding principles:
- We acknowledge and honor the fundamental value and dignity of all individuals.
- We strive to create an atmosphere that is inclusive of all.
- We pledge ourselves to creating and maintaining an environment that celebrates diverse traditions, heritages, and experiences.
- We are committed to addressing issues of equity and justice in the travel industry through continued education, advocacy and personal interaction.
OUR ETHICAL TRAVEL STATEMENT
EnRoute acknowledges the fact that travel and volunteering can be a force for great good. It can also be extremely problematic. We do our best to foster respectful travel and volunteering by our students.
To this end, we have developed a set of standards that we use as our guide when counseling students on volunteering opportunities:
- Vulnerable Peoples: We discourage volunteers without appropriate training to work with orphans or other vulnerable children.
- Medical Work: We do not recommend programs that allow untrained volunteers to conduct medical procedures on patients. We do support programs that allow shadowing, non-invasive procedures (e.g. taking blood pressure) and public health projects provided they meet our other standards for recommendation.
- Child Protection: We encourage all programs to conduct background checks on volunteers who will be working with children. If a program cannot feasibly conduct background checks on volunteers, we expect assurances that children will not be left unsupervised with volunteers.
- Wildlife: We evaluate programs on a case-by-case basis by consulting with a wildlife biologist on best practices. We do not recommend opportunities that allow inappropriate interaction with domestic or wild animals. This includes but is not limited to:
- Sites that allow any direct contact with large cats like lions or tigers
- Sites that drug or sedate animals for the sole purpose of human interaction
- Sites that are currently or ever have been associated with canned hunting
We encourage responsible travel throughout our advising process and have developed a pre-departure curriculum to further educate students about how to be considerate global citizens.
OUR TRANSPARENCY STATEMENT
Vetting programs for safety standards and quality is the foundation of our business. EnRoute conducts these evaluations from a neutral standing and only recommends organizations that we believe offer a high-quality experience for our clients and host communities.
Part of this commitment includes our policy that we do not accept referral fees from the programs we recommend. Our recommendations are made purely on the merit of the program and not financial influence.
On occasion, Julia will be invited to visit programs or locations in order to evaluate opportunities in-person. These visits may be paid for in-part or in-full by tourism bureaus or organizations. The sponsors of these visits will have no influence over any potential future recommendations, and this agreement is put in writing ahead of such visits.