Wild Frontiers Sustainability

In 2019 Wild Frontiers pledged to empower working women from low-income families in Jaipur, India, through a partnership with local social enterprise, the Pink City Rickshaw Company.

Our aim was to raise £4000 to fund the build of two new electric rickshaws and train four ladies as driver/guides, offering them employment in a safe and structured environment in what is traditionally a male dominated industry in India. In the six short months from making the pledge, we raised above and beyond the funds required through our annual 'Evening of Adventure' fundraiser and set about putting the project into motion.

By February 2020 five ladies, one more than originally planned as a result of raising a further £600, were trained as driver/guides and ready to take tourists on these unique tours through the backstreets of Jaipur to offer an insight into everyday life in the city.

It was an exciting and proud moment when we were sent the photos of the ladies being put through their paces during their training sessions.

At the time of writing this we were waiting on parts from China to complete the build of the new electric rickshaws, delayed due to corona virus. However, the ladies have had the opportunity to drive other rickshaws in the fleet until the Wild Frontiers sponsored vehicles are complete.

A major part of this pledge was to ensure the sustainability of project and continue to support the ladies and the enterprise. Every Wild Frontiers group that has visited Jaipur since November 2019 have taken a ride with the ladies of the Pink City Rickshaw Company.

The feedback from our clients has been fantastic, with many saying the experience was a highlight of their trip, enjoying not only the opportunity to see a different side of Jaipur, but to meet the amazing women who can now see a brighter future for themselves and their families thanks to the project.

The project has also generated great enthusiasm among the Wild Frontiers staff, who feel this is responsible and sustainable tourism at its best, truly expressing our ethos as an adventure travel company.

In 2019 Wild Frontiers pledges to support women from low-income households in Jaipur, India, through our new sustainable tourism project with the Pink City Rickshaw Company.

Helping the Pink City Rickshaw Company to empower women through employment, we aim to raise £4000 through the Wild Frontiers Foundation to build two new electric rickshaws and train four local women to be driver guides.

Wild Frontiers will continue to support the women and the project by booking our clients onto their tours with the Pink City Rickshaw Company when visiting Jaipur. The aim is not for the ladies to provide an in-depth tour full of historical facts, but instead to allow visitors to step behind the scenes of one of India’s most beautiful cities and soak up their surroundings away from the typical tourist crowds.
In what is traditionally a male dominated profession in India, the project not only offers the women the opportunity to learn new skills, including basic English, and gain regular employment, it builds confidence, self-esteem and self-worth in a safe and structured environment.

We believe this initiative is responsible and sustainable tourism at its best, breaking down barriers and offering our clients a truly unique travel experience, while supporting a local enterprise that offers disadvantaged women the chance to build a career and drastically improve the livelihoods of themselves and their families.

This will hopefully be the beginning of Wild Frontiers’ involvement in a larger initiative to empower women through tourism across other cities of India.

• Empowering women from low-income families in Jaipur, India
• Supporting local enterprise, the Pink City Rickshaw Company
• Building two new electric rickshaws
• Training four local ladies to become driver / guides

2019 year marks the10th anniversary of the Wild Frontiers Foundation. Supporting communities that we have the privilege to visit has always been at the heart of the Wild Frontiers ethos.

Since the company’s humble beginnings in 2002, we have contributed to projects in places we've travelled, from landmine clearance in Afghanistan to providing educational materials to rural schools in India.

In the past 10 years the Wild Frontiers Foundation has.....

+ Built Baleygon Community School offering primary education for children in the remote Hushe Valley of Pakistan.

+ Funded the installation of two e-learning classrooms in Ethiopian schools, with a third on the way this year.

+ Provided higher education scholarships for 30 students in Chitral, Pakistan.

+ Given five years of continuous classroom sponsorship at Lone Buffalo English School in Northern Laos, and still counting.

+ Purchased land to build a new school in the Kalash Valleys, Pakistan, after the old primary school was washed away in devastating floods.

+ Provided 12-month hospitality traineeships at the Hope Cafe for four young people from Kolkata's slums in India.

+ Funded a girls' football coaching programme in Laos to promote gender equality, self-confidence and well-being.

+ Built a 100ft flood defence wall to protect the Kalash village of Balanguru, Pakistan, from annual flooding.

+ Funded 200 local people to trek to visit the Eastern Lowland Gorillas they are learning to protect in Kahuzi-Biega National Park, Democratic Republic of Congo.

+ Supported the North India team in the Street Child Cricket World Cup on their journey from the streets of Kolkata to Lord's.

+ Helped purchase a bus to transport children to school in the remote Zanskar region of Ladakh in Northern India .

+ Provided emergency relief funds after devastating flooding in the Kalash Valleys of Pakistan and the Indian state of Kashmir; the Orissa Cyclone in Eastern India, the Nepal earthquake and Rohingya emergency appeal.