Social
Commitment
Prioritizing Children and Women
“Our goal is to be a true partner to the local communities with which we work, providing income and assisting them to develop in a natural way, integrating their activities with ours and achieving that they also benefit from the development of tourism in the country, if they so choose. This needs to be done in a mutually respectful way, understanding and respecting each other’s needs. Training communities in responsible and sustainable operation is a key part of the process.”
Silvia Rico
We have established two main action plans under our Social Commitment strategy:
1
To provide POSITIVE CULTURAL EXCHANGES between our guests and the local communities with which we work.
Our primary focus here is partnering with selected Andean communities by integrating them into our activities and designing programs that help promote their development, while ensuring total respect and fair trade and payment to them.
2
To regularly select and actively monitor different existing initiatives and/or design projects aimed to benefit CHILDREN and WOMEN, which we consider to be the two most socially disadvantaged groups in Peru.
Our children’s focus is to improve their wellbeing, their access to opportunities and, above all, their education. Women’s help is directed towards creating work opportunities for them, increasing their independence and helping them earn their own income to contribute to the domestic economies.
Some of our most significant actions have been / are the following:
Recruitment and employment of Andean community members
ENIGMA chooses to work with the active workforce available in the communities in which it operates. This includes the training and recruitment of men and women at least 18 years old. These communities are our primary source of recruitment of porters, employed exclusively along the Inca Trail and its variants, and also of wranglers, whose work (and that of the pack a ey own and manage) is necessary for all trekking routes other than the Inca Trail. A community-trained member working for Enigma earns an average of 8 times more than the normal agricultural wage.
Community Experiences
ENIGMA participates with several Andean communities in the design of genuine “community experiences” offered to our guests. These are designed together and operated by the community itself and include sharing with them, having lunch, workshops on textiles, visiting interpretation centers and specific activities for which each community is responsible (potato harvesting, textile dying and weaving, alpaca breeding, and other activities).
Social Outreach Budget
ENIGMA regularly supports and donates school materials and clothes to the communities with which we work.
Supporting local relevant causes and NGOs
ENIGMA regularly supports NGOs and projects linked to causes that we consider key in Peru. We focus on select initiatives, making sure they are managed in an ethical way and directly monitoring the allocation of donations and funds. Please visit our Social Projects section to learn more.
Matching our clients’ donations
Whenever a client chooses to help any project, organization, orphanage or other cause, whether through economic or material donations, ENIGMA will match our client’s support, partially if not totally, thus also getting involved in our clients’ initiatives.
Supporting International Charities and Fundraising Projects
Renowned NGOs and Foundations choose Peru as a destination to operate charity challenges for fundraising projects. ENIGMA supports these institutions by applying our “at cost” policy: we design and quote trips to support their programs, just adding a small administration fee, so that the trip is almost operated at cost and the rest fully benefits their cause. Organizations we have worked with include Kids with Cancer and Save the Children.
Clothes Bank Project
ENIGMA invites all of its clients to support our neighboring communities through the donation of clothes and other materials that are of no further use to them. We gather all this material and organize donations to communities regularly. Alternatively, the donations can be organized to be a part of the activities in a program, so that our clients can live this social-aid experience for themselves.
Social Commitment
(*all figures based in the most recent two active years)
Community members supported
1,130
1,130
Number of community members supported through our projects
Children and Women
85%
85%
Of the impacted community members are children and women.
If you know of or have experienced any initiative, idea, innovation, or way of doing things that you think would be useful for us to know, please contact us and share it with us.
