This might sound Pollyanna-esque but as a traveller, I want to see a better world. I travel to learn more about this world and further the lot of myself and others. I support the work of others in creating a better world.

As I come to the start of the year, I wanted to share five international charities that travellers should consider supporting as part of our travel adventures. (I also encourage people to support the charitable group I work for but that is a different story!)

1. The Railway Children  First came across them in India. Linked to the railway industry and supported by rail nerds such as myself, TRC also works with street children in East Africa and the UK. I have found donating to them as a non UK citizen very difficult.  It is possible but very frustrating. They need to fix this but their work is great.
2. Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders)  I have so much time for the 30,000+ volunteers who provide medicine and surgery, mass vaccinations, sanitation projects and  training campaigns in dangerous places around the world. I lived in Nigeria through the civil war there in the early 1970s. It was from this war that MSF was born.
3. Nature Conservancy – I worked with this organisation on their volunteering projects a few years ago. They are dedicated to conserving the lands and waters on which all life depends in 35 countries. 
   
4. Danish Refugee Council (Dansk Flygtningehjælp) one of the largest providers of assistance to refugees and displaced people in Syria, this private humanitarian umbrella organisation DRC is working in 30 conflict zones around the world.
5. UNICEF If you are a One World airline customer, you will be very familiar with the United Nations Children’s Fund which is supported by many One World partners, a relationship which started with Qantas and UNICEF. I need to declare that I worked for UNICEF  in the mid 1990s and have seen in and believe in their work. Despite their name, the organisation works independently of the UN.

As we plan our travel this year, can we all look at ways we can build a better world?

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