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Achievements

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The mission statement of GVI is integral in every activity and action that we conduct. To gauge the success of our activities we have to ensure our activities are both measurable and measured, whether they be educational, scientific, community or humanitarian based, and whether they are local capacity building or global awareness initiatives. This section of the website reflects on our progress.

GVI’s Mission Statement

To promote the advancement of sustainable development through the creation of partnerships, promotion of local and global education opportunities and via direct financial support.

We accomplish these three primary objectives through:

• 1. Partnerships. We fulfil genuine local needs by making a long term commitment to supply direct funding, manpower and equipment to locally run projects. We rely upon the volunteer contributions to fulfil local needs, and upon the volunteers to supply the workforce on the ground. The research and successes thus belong with the local partners, not with an external funding agency.
• 2. Education. We are committed to training local people in the skills we are teaching our volunteers and in recruiting staff locally. Education programmes are developed alongside our conservation efforts.
• 3. Programme support. Through direct and indirect financial contributions and through scientific and community elements within our projects.




Partnerships

All of our projects and initiatives are with and on behalf of local partner organisations and communities. These include award winning NGOs, (Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International, the Jane Goodall Trust in Africa and Amigos de Sian Ka’an. ANAI, and FUNEDESIN in Latin America) and the world renowned and respected National Parks of South Africa, Costa Rica, Mexico and Argentina and the Kenyan Wildlife Service. They are amongst the very best conservation organisations in the world. To ensure GVI’s efforts and resources, and thus your money are efforts, are used on priority projects for the region, on our expeditions have multiple local, national and international partners. This ensures the work is of direct benefit to the local partner organisations and the local region.

Read more about our local partners on our partners page Find out about our corporate responsibility partnership initiatives

Education and Program Support




We want our work to increase:

• General scientific knowledge
• Scientific interest in the region
• Documented conservation value
• Community education and awareness
• Tourist education and awareness
• Sustainable revenues for the local community.




GVI programs increase local capacity via:

• Funding and equipment (in 2006, 78% of volunteer contributions went directly into the field (over 4,000,000 USD))
• Charitable Trust funding for long term, locally led and sustainable initiatives- actively seeking grant funding, and a conduit for donations by ex-volunteers and friends of GVI
• Indirect funding - on average a GVI volunteer spends an additional 1,000 to 2,000 USD in the local region, prior to, during and post placement
• The promotion of partners and the region via the media and links with international organizations and funding bodies (to date GVI and our partners have been in The Times, Boston Globe, Newsweek, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Sun-Times, National Geographic Traveler, Ottawa Citizen, and the Denver Post. GVI has also been featured on various international television programs)
• Developing local science or teaching projects. The methodologies used are decided by the local partners to be relevant locally and of best use for each particular region and location
• The development of biological field stations - 11 in place in Mexico, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Patagonia, Seychelles, Kenya and South Africa
• The development of two TEFL centers to run free English lessons and environmental education and awareness programs
• Local employment - staff on GVI’s bases and programs currently consists of around 25% host nation personnel in all levels of management. Through the National Scholarship Program, GVI aims to source, train and employ many more.
• The National Scholarship Program, in which local people are trained for free (136 each year, worth over 400,000 USD)
• Providing teachers and schools. GVI-sponsored teaching programs currently support and teach over 2,000 children in seven countries. GVI provides scholarships to over 400 children in Guatemala to attend national public school. We are building and funding a secondary school in Urcusiqui, Ecuador. Over 1,000 other children receive all the educational utensils they need to attend school, plus food to help them to concentrate
• Teacher/ranger training days - being further developed and published as part of a grant from the Project AWARE foundation
• Local community and partner organization staff training and certification.

GVI programs report against measurable set objectives. To peruse our expedition reports and to find out more about local capacity building initiatives, please click on the program of interest to you below. For projects please view the ‘How Does this Project Make a Difference?’ section on each project’s home page.

1 888 653 6028

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