Alternative travel experiences for people-of-conscience.
Join us in the misty mountains and steamy jungles of the Mexican southeast. Every “Schools for Chiapas” trip provides excellent opportunities to meet, and personally interact with, the contemporary Zapatistas of Chiapas, Mexico. Your trip fees support Zapatista educational programs in literacy, health, ecology, and commercialization. No special language skills are required as full translations are always provided collectively.
Most Schools for Chiapas trips involve rustic living in breathtakingly beautiful locations with interesting and involved people from many countries. Occasionally, we offer trips which are based in comfortable hotels with day trips to the autonomous, indigenous communities (read Zapatista) in the misty highlands and steamy jungles of the Mexican southeast.
Schools for Chiapas also regularly organizes specially designed study trips, volunteer working delegations and activists' caravans for community, labor, high school, university, church, and specific interest groups. As of this writing (Nov. 2009) Schools for Chiapas has organized over eighty trips involving thousands of people from more than thirty countries to locations throughout the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas.
Trip #1s: Specially Designed Chiapas Travel
Dates determined by participants
Unique three-day to three-month immersion experiences in autonomous, Mayan civilian centers with emphasis on the social, cultural, educational, health, and/or agricultural aspects of the Zapatista movement. Side trips are available to ancient Mayan cities, rain and cloud forests, tropical rivers, and beautiful colonial cities.
Trip #90 Mayan Corn and Organic Agriculture
Sunday, July 25 to Saturday, July 31, 2010
Plant a seed of hope and learn about sustainable agriculture from the people who invented corn.
Trip #91 Zapatista Education & Health & Anniversary of Zapatista governments
Sunday, Aug. 8 to Saturday, Aug. 14 2010
Learn about the top two priorities of the Zapatista movement (education and health) and how their volunteer, rotating, elected, civilian government carries them out.
Trip #92 Corn and Coffee Harvest
Sunday November 21 - Saturday November 27, 2010 This intensive, rural delegation will bring participants "up close and personal" with the realities of corn and coffee harvest in the life of a Mayan peasant in Chiapas, Mexico. Specific details still to be announced so come prepared for anything!
Trip #93: New Year 2011 Zapatista Anniversary Celebration
Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2010 until Sunday, January 2, 2011
Delegation 93 will participate in the preparations and celebrations for the 17th anniversary of the Zapatista insurrection. Delegates will learn about the history of the Zapatasita movement and the future plans and dreams of the Mayan people through large public presentations as well as small meeting. Delegates are encouraged to participate directly in the nightly cultural presentations which can include but are not limited to: music, dance, theater, poetry and visual art. (This will be a once in a lifetime experience.)
Trip #94: Musicians' Educational Tour
Sunday, February, 13 until Saturday, February 19, 2011
Experience the music of the Zapatista movement and help spread that music to Zapatista schools. Musicians are encouraged to bring instruments and teaching ideas to short, intensive, music educational exchanges and classes. Resources are highly limited and instrument donations are greatly appreciated.
Trip #95A: Alternate Spring Break 2011
Dates determined by participants
The alternative Spring Break 2011 delegations will live and learn in rustic buildings in Zapatista civilian centers; travel will be via very basic indigenous, public transportation. The delegations will have extensive face-to-face discussions with Mayan individuals and organizations engaged in directly challenging corporate driven globalization through education, health, commercialization, and alternative indigenous governmental structures.
We regularly schedule trips through out the year but, if you are looking for a trip scheduled more than a few months in the future, we may not have settled on specific date and/or itinerary.
Side trips are available to ancient Mayan cities, rain and cloud forests, tropical rivers, and beautiful colonial cities.
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