Luis Antonio Chavez (Co-founder and Manager) has over 15 years experience of working in the tourist industry & has previously owned 2 independent tour companies. He also has experience of working with children having set up & run an orphan community project in Venezuela. He is from Huaraz, Peru & he wanted to set up this organisation because he is sensitive about the suffering of the people of Perú.

Jay Chavez (Co-founder and Manager) previously volunteered with a conservation project in Malaysia, & a school & an animal refuge in Bolivia (after a few years working as an Administrator for an environmental company). She is from Shropshire, England & has been dreaming of doing something like this for years because it is a whole lot more satifying than filing & health and safety reports!

Luis and Jay are currently living in Bristol, UK and concentrating on raising their son but they are both still very much involved in the management of TNT.

Carmen Chávez Rincón (Administrator and Spanish Teacher) has 14 years experience in education. She has also worked with social projects related to education in rural areas in the past. They say that charity starts at home, it certainly does with us because Carmen is Luis' sister. Although employing her was certainly not an act of charity on our part - more like the other way around! She likes working at Traveller Not Tourist as she finds it more gratifying than teaching in Government run schools.

Brenda (Volunteer Liaison Officer) is currently studying architecture but chose to join our team because she knows what it is like to grow up in difficult circumstances and wants to have a part in building a better future for the children of today. If you contact TNT by email, it will probably her who replies, she is also your first point of contact in the TNT office. She has been a wonderful asset for TNT as she really puts her heart and soul into her work.

Vanessa (Tour Operator) started working with us as a tour guide on our 7 day Colca Tours, in fact, it is her family that hosts the residential section of the tour. She grew up in Colca Canyon and therefore has a lot of knowledge about the area. Her last few years have been spent working as a tour guide and seller for others but now she has agreed to join our team in the important role of Tour Operator. We are very pleased to welcome her to the organisation as we know that she will do a great job of developing this new element of TNT.

OUR VISION AND MISSION

Our VISION for the future is to build an organisation which is self-sustaining and also able to sustain the projects we choose to support whilst raising awareness and attracting donations and volunteers.

Our MISSION is to give foreigners visiting Peru the opportunity to be involved in the true peruvian reality and Peruvians the chance to lift themselves out of poverty and believe in the chance of a better world, and then create it.

Within this mission we also have certain criteria by which we run our organisation, these are:

Our primary concern are the needs of the children we work with

We work hard to ensure that volunteers who work with us can have a rewarding experience, using the skills and passions they bring with them to enrich the lives of children living in poverty (without having to pay large sums of money).

We are a non-profit organisation. All donations are used directly in projects or for legitimate organisation needs. The minimal administration fee we charge is used to employ the staff we need to run the organisation efficiently (on reasonable wages).

We take volunteer complaints/comments/suggestions seriously and work with our volunteers to ensure that we are continuously improving the organisation.

We provide a safe, supportive environment for our volunteers whilst simultaneously allowing them to experience the reality of poverty in Peru and help to relieve it.