People-First Tourism at Harvard University

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Last Tuesday, April 5th I had the pleasure of participating in a panel presentation titled "Sparking Social Change" at Harvard's Graduate School of Design; the co-presenters were Marshall Ganz (prof of Public Policy at the Kennedy School) and Maurice Cox (prof of Architecture at UVa and former mayor of Charlottesville).  In this event, we discussed ways to engender change to favor the most vulnerable segments of society.  Maurice Cox spoke about the importance of building trust with communities and of identifying and empowering community champions or change agents.  Marshall Ganz elaborated on process and challenges in organizing social change;  some of his most poignant comments included:
"Don't help people - lead and organize them for social change."
"In a healthy democracy, equality of voice must compensate for innequality of resources."
"Those with power have all the resources.  Don't wait until you get the resources, be resourceful."

It was interesting to give a presentation about tourism in this forum, but everyone seemed to relate well to the People-First Tourism concept.  This trip led me to realize that we are involved in much more than an academic debate - People-First Tourism is bound to become social movement.  The struggle intensifies - you're invited to join us in the trenches. DM

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