Hello all,
Below you will find the "Letter from Ying". Ying is a Hmong 20 year old guide in Sapa. She was one of many Sapa Tour Guides representing the Homng and hilltribe communities that attended the Tour Guide training course we put on.
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She has become one of my closest friends in Sapa. Her spirit and enthusiasm as she treks through her and other villages is well received and she has become a favorite guide for many tourists.
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Her letter is written evidence that community base tourism projects can achieve great things. At least half of Ying's earnings go to her parents. She is a leader amongst her peers and will welcome many people into her home, her family, her culture.
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Guides like Ying continue to make Sapa the special place that it is. I have thanked her for contributing to the Changemakers sight and she looks forward to having more tour guide courses in the future.

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Chris Carnovale
Capilano College, Current Student

Please visit www.cbtvietnam.com and sign the Tourist Code of Ethics.

Cuoc song cua toi o sapa van tot ca va toi van di huong dan nhu moi khi, my life in Sapa is still good and I still working as a tour guide, toi rat thich cong viec cua toi va cam thay khach du lich o sapa rat thu vi. I like my job very much and I feel interested in the tourist here. toi da lam nghe nay duoc 3 nam roi. I have been a tour guide for 3 years already. toi thich nghe huong dan vien du lich tai vi huong dan thi minh co the hoc duoc rat nhieu dieu ve khach du lich .va biet duoc rat nhieu cac nuoc khac nua I like tour guiding job because when Im guiding I also can learn many things about tourists and know more about other countries. toi rat muon tro thanh mot huong dan vien rat tot va toi cung da duoc hoc may ngay de tro thanh huong dan tot hon . va toi hoc duoc rat nhieu dieu trong cai khoa hoc do. I want to be a very good tour guide and I had learned in a couple days to be better, and I learned a lot from the course. cai khoa hoc do rat thu vi va giup duoc moi nguoi hieu nhieu hon ve huong dan vien the tour guide course was very interesting and help people to understand more about tour guiding.
con ve cai du an cua nguoi canada toi nghi se giup duoc rat nhieu do va toi nghi moi nguoi se cam thay rat thu vi duoc hoc ve nguoi du lich , cung giong nhu toi vay the Canadaians’s project I think helped out a lot and I think everybody excited to join and learn, same like me.
thoi chuc ban luon luon vui ve va trang day hanh phuc
yem I wish you always happy, full of joy in your life.
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Chris Carnovale
Capilano College, Current Student

Jackie, Greg, Melissa, Scott, and to all of the rest of the students,

Thank you for your hard work. Your dedication to the project has truly been an inspiration to all. You have made your schools proud and have continued to be leaders in and out of the classroom.

Thank You!

After reading Melissa and Scott's most recent comments, it re-occurred to me on how amazing these types of projects positively impacting students and their quest for education. Inspired students have come from the master's program at Royal Road University, the Tourism Programs from Capilano, North Island and HOU, and many of these students, including myself, have decided on major career changes.
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And, as an update, I am happy to share that many of the girls we trained in the villages are off to either high school and some even to University. Almost all have said that they will come back to help their villages! These are girls who (including their families) never would have ever thought they would be going to school after finishing elementary school.

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Chris Carnovale
Capilano College, Current Student

Please visit www.cbtvietnam.com and sign the Tourist Code of Ethics.

I was involved with the CBT project as a graduate student of Brian White’s while completing a Masters in Environmental Education.

What struck me most about the CBT project is that community values were the foundation on which the project was built. I believe this makes CBT unique compared with some other international poverty reduction efforts, in which local communities are less engaged in determining how the project will progress. In my job today with the World Wildlife Fund, I often look to the success of this approach, which makes the needs and priorities of the community central to the work. The CBT project serves as an example of how to improve livelihoods by supporting the cultural and economic well-being of communities, while caring for the environment that sustains them.

I am very grateful to Ms. Ly May Chan, Ms. Ly Man May and Ms. Phan Man May – and to all of the people in Ta Phin who welcomed me into their homes and their lives. In particular, I am indebted to Ms. Anh, the CBT coordinator, who was invaluable to my project, providing me with precious insight and warm friendship.

I look forward to following the ongoing success of CBT!

I was extremely fortunate to be involved in the community-based tourism (CBT) project in Sa Pa. I am a Capilano College graduate and park planner and it was very satisfying to see my contributions in this project make a difference.

My involvement was primarily assisting Hoang Lien National Park staff manage trekking tourism activities in the forested areas of the park in a manner that protects the unique biodiversity values and provides socio-economic benefits to the local people. This became the basis of my Masters thesis and resulted in the development of an integrated visitor management planning framework. This framework combined western visitor management tools and techniques with governance systems that recognize the importance of social and economic considerations as well as conservation and tourism ones. Over the two years I was involved, park staff took part in this applied research and had already implemented components of the recommendations.

While conducting my research, I also had the opportunity to homestay with Phan Man May and family in Ta Phin and observe the faculty and student volunteers at Hanoi Open University and Capilano College provide training in operating a homestay and a textile co-op. It was very apparent that the CBT project was a source of great pride in the villages and was making a positive contribution to the community. To see the faces of the villagers light up when the jeep with CBT project leaders pulled up was inspiring. I cannot wait for an opportunity to return.

Sapa was...well ultimately the most authentic and emotional traveling experiences of my life. We didn't end up staying in Ta Phin due to the weather - so instead we hiked down to TaVan. We had a killing of a pig (followed by a drinking of the blood), and a wonderful family new year's dinner. We involved ourselves in the house activities and made what I think was a real connection. We also visited TaPhin by foot for a day, saw the cultural tourism house. It was rather emotional to see the work that you have done over the years. I was very impressed and admire the dedication put into it. We stumbled across many spiritual ceremonies in the village where our guide lead us in and showed us something we never thought we ever imagined existed. We kept a respectful distance at first, until some of the older women took us by the hand and shared with us the details of these cutural ceremonies.

Rarely do I stumble across a tourism product where the hosts of the destination wholeheartedly welcome me into their lives. Sapa is unique in that the hosts clearly use the positive side of tourism to build their community and re-establish their culture. The example that Capilano College has set is admirable. Sapa - and specifically TaVan and TaPhin have found a special place in my heart. I thank Capilano College and especially the communities of Sapa for sharing such a wonderful experience with me.

am Vu An Dan, tourism lecturer from Faculty of Tourism - Hanoi Open University one of the partner of the project.
I have been with the project since the begining and thus have observed a big change and impacts on the communities that we have worked on.
Needless to say about the things that were mentioned in the entry. My happiness about the change is that when we first arrived in our research trip, people there showed that they wanted to "do tourism" (their way of expressing that they want to get in tourism business and make money) and we can somewhat realized the envy that some people had when seeing other households have chance to offer homestay to get some money. They did not even realize the cost that these "lucky households" had to pay. In short they wanted to do it but did not know how to start.
After coming with big efforts even sometimes things went like hopeless in delivering training there now we see that they started having plan for what they want to do and some plans have been realized.
In addition to that I also see the positive change in the way other steakholders and local government see "Community based tourism"
Last but not least we are now receiving orders for providing training and experience sharing in developing CBT to help reduce poverty from different organization including training for officials from Vietnam National Administration of Tourism.
What can be better than that.

I thought it might be nice if we new a little more about the photos. Looking at the photos from left to right and from top down I have included a short description of each:

1. A group of Dao women attend one of the many training sessions. (Taphin, Vietnam, 2005)
2. Group of young Trekking Guides, mostly girls, from all over the Sapa area. H'mong, Dao, and Day are represented in the group. This photo is taken during a practical guide training day. (Sapa, Vietnam, 2007)
3. Phan Man May, a Dao woman in her homestay. The beds were designed in a traditional Dao way with rice-stalk mattresses. (Taphin, Vietnam, 2006)
4. A group of Dao women, as well as Canadian and Vietnamese volunteers, stand in front of a Cultural and Tourism House set up by the community. (Taphin, Vietnam, 2007)
5. A Vietnamese student from HOU plays the role of patient during a situational First Aid training session. The learners are two Day (pronounced Zay) women from Tavan. (Tavan, Vietnam, 2004)
6. Geoffry Bird (Project Coordinator), Mrs. Lan Huong (HOU Faculty, and Ly May Chan (village headwoman) have dinner together at Ly May Chan's home. (Taphin, Vietnam, 2004)

Hope this helps!

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Chris Carnovale
Volunteer Trainer
www.cbtvietnam.com

As a faculty member of Capilano College I had the privilege of working together with many committed team members from Canada, HOU in Hanoi and the people of the Sapa region. Through our time spent in Ta phin and Ta van we observed the overwhelming amount of smoke in the homes produced from the cooking fires. This smoke could be atributed to eye, nose and throat infections, especially in the children. Working from the design of the traditional stoves we created greater efficiencies. The new design burned hotter, created less smoke and used less wood. This collaborative approach allowed for easy adoption by the dao people of Ta phin. This simple and efficient stove design is used in new home construction in the village. Another huge success was the leadership shown by a village elder to eliminate toxic and damaging kerosene torches from a popular cave tour and to hire and train boys as guides. The CBT project allowed those involved to be the change that they wanted to see in the world. Thank-you!

With such a cross section of tourists arriving to Sapa on a daily basis, it is easy to understand how the tourism industry has blown up and been capitalized by those who choose to profit and not necessarily choose to do it responsibly.
With Sapa being a beautiful and buzzing hub, it serves as a good platform to step off of and into the refreshing surroundings of the villages of TaPhin and Tavan. I was fortunate enough to spend time with Ly Man May, her family and friends in her cozy house in TaPhin. Practically spoiling me with food, rice wine and the ultimate herbal bath made me feel so comfortable and welcomed in her home.
But, beyond how her homestay house treated her guests, I was able to see with my own eyes the positive effects of change and efforts the CBT Project had on people like Ly Man May. Her spirit is one of the biggest I have ever come across and her joy to share her ways of life with those coming in from the outside is remarkable. The project screams success, and it's not just from the open arms and smiles on the faces of many of the Red Dao, but also from the community initiative to get those visiting from afar part of the daily life of someone like Ly Man May.

I look forward to my next visit to the Red Dao community, and until then I can still find the simple comforts from her kitchen to my own, like my favourite tomato tofu dish that Ly Man May cooked often over my stay. With the simple flavours, it makes me think that I'm not that far away from TaPhin after all.

Well Done CBT Project, and thank you for all your initiatives and allowing me to experience one of the now greatest memories that I have.

One sometimes wonders why we travel or pick the places that we do...but as the comments reflected here...such questions are immediately answered upon first visit to the incredible villages here in Sa pa.

As a student, I was blessed to have had the chance to visit and stay in one of the remarkable homestays in Ta Phin as part of an international field course looking at policy and planning issues around community based tourism. Perched high in the hills, amoungst the lush green foilage and the rice fields, I was greeted with smiling faces, an abundance of amazing food, and a sense of warmth, compassion, and hospitality unlike any other I had ever experienced.

Although I did not take part in the training in Viet nam, the evidence of the great labour and dedicated work of all the Canadian and Vietnamese trainers and participants is unmistakable. More so, the improved livelihoods and breadth of tourism experiences provided by the villagers, needs no explanation other than what you may receive sitting around the dinner table, sharing rice wine, swapping songs, and celebrating life...as hosts, as visitors, and as fellow humans.

Through from the inception of the project, Geoffrey Bird's leadership, insight, and dedication to both the people in the villages and our friends at HOU, has truly shaped this project into what it is today, not to mention the everlasting effect on each of the participants, including myself.

With time, the far-reaching, positive effects of this project will continue to unfold. The villagers shall continue to shape their destiny with the impetus of the CBT project, and the long list of participants, contributors, and trainers will move forward with great memories and passion for sustainable tourism development in their hearts.

I myself will never forget my stay in Ta Phin, nor my responsibility as a tourism professional, as a traveler, and as a fellow CBT supporter, to tread lightly on this earth and with a dedication to ethical travel and treatment of all the world's places and people.

I was extremely fortunate to have been given the opportunity to participate on the CBT project in Vietnam on a number of occasions. It is not very often we have the opportunity to witness ideas and strategies play out in actuality; for that reason I will always be grateful for what I was able to bare witness to, and experience, over my years with the CBT project. Not only did the CBT training result in supplemental economic contributions to the family household income of the participants (and the village as a whole) through the delivery of sustainable tourism services, but it also reinforced the importance of preserving the villagers heritage and culture (the younger generation truly understands...they get it!). The project also instilled a sense of hope by exposing villagers to opportunities that had previously been perceived as unattainable. To see this play out with my own eyes upon my last visit to one of the homestays was a truly remarkable experience, one which brought much pride and appreciation for all that was accomplished.

Much thanks and appreciation goes out to Geoff Bird who had a great idea and decided to follow up on it with the help of a phenomenal group of people. The projects impact reached beyond the scope of the villages; it had a positive impact on all those involved. At a personal level, my life's trajectory was completely altered as a result of my experiences in Vietnam, something I will always be grateful for.

I was lucky enough to be introduced to the project in Ta Phin, by one of the student volunteers and straight away I saw how unique this product was compared to many other trekking areas throughout Vietnam.

I travel now uses Ta Phin as the main focus of all of their Sapa trips and it continues to get wonderful feedback from our customers for its authentic homestays and wonderful hospitality.

A fantastic project that we are proud to promote.

Signing up as a student volunteer just after the completion of the first year of the project, I had no concept of the transformational experience I was about to be involved in. Lucky to be one of the few students selected to join the train-the-trainer program, I arrived in Hanoi in 2004 with a small group of other trainers from Capilano and North Island College.

Over the course of the next 4 weeks, we travelled the Northern corridors of Vietnam building relationships with Hanoi Open University faculty and volunteer students, delivering sustainable training initiatives to the local ethnic tribes. Although the period was relatively short I still see my time in and around Sapa as a golden age in my life. I learned more in those 4 weeks than during entire annual spans of my life.

Looking back, the experience seems to have raised not only the economic standing of the ethnic villages, but also their spirit. The local landscape and people are an incredible tourism resource - and I can confidently remind myself it will be enjoyed for years to come with the villages personally benefiting from the increase in activity.

I am proud of this project and I know everyone involved, including the Villagers share this sentiment.

As an instructor with North Island College, one of the partnering institutions, I was fortunate to be involved with the CBT project in Vietnam and see its remarkable progression over the span of years. Witnessing the incredible and diverse culture of the ethnic tribes was motivational in my desire to contribute to a project that strived to achieve poverty reduction and sustainability of both the environmental and cultural attributes of the Sapa Region.
The opportunity to share this experience with Canadian students created an unparalleled learning opportunity for instructors and students alike.
I am grateful to the students and faculty of Hanoi Open University and to Geoffrey Bird and his colleagues at Capilano College for the opportunity to have been a part of such a project.

I had the privilage of participating in the 'poverty reduction through community based tourism' project over a four year period. Because of the exceptionally strong foundation of cooperation that Geoffrey Bird had established with Hanoi Open University, the villagers of Ta Phin and Tu Van communes, and Huang Lien National Park, I was able to develop an additional planning project to help protect and preserve the endangered high elevation cloud forest of the national park and build a basis for collaboration between the park and the tribal peoples who live in and near Huang Lien. Additional funding was secured so that two of my graduate students from Royal Roads University were able to develop an environmental education plan for the villagers, and a management plan for trekking and biodiversity management in the park.

This poverty reduction project has supported improved guiding opportunities, community health, homestay development, and contracted park employment for villagers, and has won recognition and support from the government of Lau Cai province. Hanoi Open University faculty and students gained essential understanding of Red Dao and other ethnic minority village lifestyles and developed ongoing relationships with them. The Canadian faculty and students who volunteered their time on this project have been enriched by the experience, and several have stayed on to continue helping the villagers. This entire project's outstanding achievement is a credit to the vision and commitment of Geoffrey Bird, who deserves huge respect and recognition for a complex and challenging poverty reduction effort that is a resounding success!

I am Hang Minh,Truong - a Vietnamese volunteer student who joined in Community Based Tourism Project in Sapa from 2005 to 2007.

I must say that I was a very lucky person when I had a chance to join in this project.

Thank to Community Based Tourism project in Sapa, I have a chance to see by my eyes and understand the poverty of ethnic people in Vietnam - my country, which I hardly believe it even when I watched it on TV. I always want to do some thing for ethnic people, and find out how to develop our community best.

From this project, I have been matured a lot. We, students, become more active and confident; especially, we can have a chance to practice what we study at university. We also gained a lot of experience in group working and studied useful skills (negotiating, leadership, training, and communication skill). Many students in our team found out and developed their talent creatively and successfully.

We also had a chance to meet and work with wonderful professors, trainers, and students from Capilano College and Hanoi Open University. This project was really a magic bridge that brought Canada and Vietnam together, and made us understand each other, both in culture and lifestyle. I must say that, working in Community Based Tourism project was the most wonderful time in my student life, and it makes my student life an unforgettable memory.

Thank you all so much for giving Sapa this project, I am so impressed and grateful for all things you did for Sapa in particular and our country in general.

I do hope that someday, this project will continue the second phase to bring best benefits for Sapa's community and we can have another chance to work together.

Once again, thank you so so much !!!

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Hang Minh Truong
CBT Volunteer student
Hanoi Open University
Email: minhhangtnt@gmail.com

My husband and I had the good fortune to spend time in the Sapa area and to witness first hand the success of the Community Based Tourism Project.
Travelling to the Sapa area is like travelling to a mystical place, where people from different hilltribes (the Hmong and the Red Dao)help to create a colourful landscape with their traditional dress as they wander the town selling their handicrafts and wares.
However, it did not take us long to see how mass tourism is exploiting the very people and area tourists came to see. Sapa is a destination that is advertized everywhere in Vietnam. You would be hard pressed to find a tour operator or hotel (in HCMC or Hanoi in particular)not trying to capitalize on the tourist market of Sapa. The sad thing is that a very small percentage of the earnings from the mass tourism make it into the hands of the hilltribe people. The competition between people trying to earn money by selling their wares is fierce and many children forsake their education to help their household's economy.
For reasons mentioned above, we were delighted to meet with representatives of CBT Project - whose main goal is to reduce poverty through community based, ecological friendly and sustainable tourism.
We were fortunate to stay with a Red Dao family whose homestay was created as a result of CBT. This was the most amazing cultural experience had in Vietnam. We participated in their traditional life - working in the rice and corn fields, cooking, tending animals and watching the father make tools. We witnessed the true cooperative spirit of the village when we were asked to help in another family's field as they were facing hard times.
We met some wonderful friends and we felt good that our money was going directly to them and not a middle man.
This project provides a great example of the success of sustainable, community based tourism.

I am the Community Based Tourism Project (hereafter called CBT) Coordinator on the Vietnam side. I am also faculty at Hanoi Open University. For over 5 years the CBT project has run in Sa Pa, and we Vietnamese have volunteered including faculty and students. We feel that the CBT project has been very beneficial and has also become something very special. We have learned from it, we have lived with it and we are very proud of it. Why do I say so?

1. We learn from it in terms of building our capacity to train others, teaching using strong methodology as well as our understanding our responsibilities to support the poor in our country.
2. We live with it because we have been providing training in CBT for Ta van and Taphin villagers, Sa Pa District and Laocai provincial government officials and now we extend CBT training to other provinces throughout Vietnam.
3. We also share our experience with CBT with everyone in Vietnam and in the Southeast Asia through VIETNAM CBT NETWORK that we have created with local non-governmental agencies and tour operators.
4. We take pride in it because it is not like other projects that just come and buy something for the poor. CBT project supports directly the villagers and now it works successfully. We now can keep supporting other villages. The funding for CBT project Phase I is now finished but we still work and continue to provide CBT training support to whoever needs it. The CBT project makes a very great influence on the tourism in Vietnam, creating a sustainable way. Besides, we are proud of the volunteering work, which was very hard work, but we have contributed to a successful CBT Project and to the poverty elimination of Vietnam.

In conclusion, the CBT project arrived and was a new concept with us 5 years ago, now it has been blooming in Vietnam and has become the best way to develop tourism in a sustainable way.

As a student volunteer, this project was truly a transformational experience. It demonstrated that tourism is not only traveling to another country or an industry for budding entrepreneurs; tourism can also be a tool to make people's lives a little bit better and to create opportunities that wouldn't normally be there otherwise.

Further, what was amazing about this project is that the volunteers that worked and trained in the villages were not only the teachers; they were also the students. Because this was a collective effort, learning was shared between all stakeholders (community members, students, faculty - both Vietnamese and Canadian).

I would like to take this time to thank the Canadian students and faculty from Capilano and North Island College, the faculty and students from Hanoi Open University and the people that live in the communities of Sapa, Taphin and Tavan for making this projcet such a success. I am proud to be part of that.

Finally, a special thanks to the people from the hill tribe communities (the Hmong, the Red Dao and the Day) that taught me the most about tourism, about life and about myself.

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Chris Carnovale
Volunteer Trainer
www.cbtvietnam.com

The Sa Pa area of Vietnam is an amazing place to visit. People come to Sa Pa to interact with tribe people from villages that surround the area. The tribe's people still wear their traditional dress, live in the same style of wood homes, and cultivate their land in much the same way as has been done for generations. The people here have colourful personalities and are happy and proud to share their home and culture with tourists from all over the world. AND THE TOURISTS COME BY THE DROVES! This intense presence of tourists brings out tribe women from the surrounding villages to sell their weaving and other crafts on the streets of Sa Pa. THEY COME IN BIGGER DROVES THAN THE TOURISTS!
Needless to say, things can quickly become quite intense when coming to and from your hotel as you are bombarded with wares from every direction by Ha Mung and Dhao ladies each as eager as the next to show their products.(it was explained to me by a friend that traditionally it is not these people's nature to be so in your face, but competition is stiff in the local art/craft scene)
A few days into our stay in Sa Pa we went to spend the night at a Dhao homestay in the village of Ta Phin. Instantly upon entering the village you notice the difference in the vibe from the center of Sa Pa. It is more peaceful here. We spent the night in a traditional Dhao home where a feast was prepared by our hosts, rice wine-a-plenty flowed and before long the singing began! It didn't take long to realize that the people here are much different at home in their village than when they're forced to compete in selling goods in Sa Pa. In Ta Phin, we were welcomed with open arms and as a result we walked away with an understanding of the local culture, not to mention a few new friends.

I helped to train Hanoi Open University faculty how to train the villagers about HIV/AIDS transmission and prevention. I have been educating people about HIV in Canada and Thailand for many years. However I found that by using the format and principles involved in this community-based tourism programme the overall awareness and understanding of HIV/AIDS was better understood by the villagers (from the children to the elders) and likely to become a part of their day-to-day experiences with tourists.

Footprint, as a local tour operator and a responsible travel company, we found this CBT project to be now a very good product of ours. After the training by HOU teachers and Capilano's experts, the locals in Ta Phin really do community tourism, they work together and know how to please guests at their traditional homes, our visitors to Ta Phin also enjoy learning their interesting cultures and customers, and they really like it when children are being educated to keep their heritage for the future generations.

You can visit their website for more information: http://www.taphin-sapa.info

Hi there,

The place looks stunning and i'm really tempted to try out the food.

Komal