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ANNA PINTO, Executive Director of MicatoAmericaShare
WISH-LIST TRIP: Tiger’s Nest Monastery, Bhutan. I’ve heard Hollywood producers describe Tiger’s Nest as “Shangri-La meets mystical Star Wars planet,” which is not wrong, but it’s so much more than that. Imagine climbing up forested hillsides and through lush green fields as this stunning monastery grows closer and closer. I’ve heard that when the wind blows, the prayer flags flutter and the air fills with the smell of magnolias, rhododendrons, and dwarf bamboo from the valley. (Micato India arranges journeys to the Kingdom of Bhutan.) CURRENT OBSESSION: Elvis. And not just current. The King is an all-thetime obsession, along with the always magnificent Ladysmith Black Mambazo of South Africa.
I’D MOST LIKE TO DINE WITH: Nelson Mandela, a man who was unjustly imprisoned for 27 years yet had it in his heart to forgive his jailers. It was also Mandela who said that “education is the most powerful weapon to change the world,” which is our guiding principle at Micato-AmericaShare. duffel!) well organized and can be used forever. And if you buy them in different colors, you can color-code your packing, making it easy to find what you’re looking for and eliminating the need to repack.
WHY ARE MICATO-AMERICASHARE’S PROGRAMS EVEN MORE CRITICAL TODAY?
Micato’s nonprofit arm, AmericaShare, was actually founded during a pandemic. Decades ago, we decided to focus our attention on the impoverished women and children in the Mukuru slum of Nairobi, Kenya, whose lives had been impacted by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Then, as now, we felt strongly that the most effective way to bring lasting, sustainable change to Mukuru was through education. Our School Sponsorship Programme, for instance, matches orphaned or vulnerable children with generous Micato travelers and travel advisors who sponsor the children to attend boarding school. MicatoAmericaShare also works closely with Huru—established by AmericaShare co-founder Lorna Macleod—which, in the process of manufacturing reusable sanitary pads, also employs and trains women in the community. As we navigate through another pandemic, I can’t think of a time when bringing education and economic empowerment to women has been more important.
YOUR BIGGEST LEARNING AMIDST COVID-19?
Where there’s a will, there’s always a way. Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, Huru continues to manufacture reusable sanitary pads (to date nearly 1,400,000 pads have been distributed in free Huru Kits to more than 175,000 girls in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda), and almost overnight converted some of its production lines to make reusable face masks. One of the silver linings of the crisis is that it has not been a pause for work: Huru has been able to employ 55 people to manufacture pads and masks as well as 200 ambassadors to distribute 100,000 masks.
WHEN I’M NOT WORKING YOU’LL
FIND ME: On safari. Wherever in the world I am, my heart leads me back to Africa’s game lands, where you can sit for hours watching herds of elephants, dazzles of zebras, as well as cheetahs, gazelles, wildebeest, giraffes, lions, rhinos … and say absolutely nothing, relishing the stillness and almost eternal quiet of the bush.
TRAVEL. EXPERIENCE. LEARN. REPEAT.
EAST<>WEST
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