Period of engagement
The position would commence as soon as possible but we are prepared to wait for the suitable candidate. We need a minimum commitment of 2 years.
Position Overview
Reality Tours and Travel (RTT) is one half of a dynamic social enterprise which aims at raising awareness and resources to address social issues facing disadvantaged communities. The organisation is most well known for its tours of Mumbai’s Dharavi slum - a 2.5 hour walk highlighting the small scale industries and community spirit in its residential areas and dispelling myths about the realities of urban slum life. Eighty percent of the profits from the tours go to support the social work undertaken by sister organisation Reality Gives - an NGO which runs and supports educational and other projects to improve the lives of our communities.
RTT has generated an enormous about of publicity and goodwill (see details below). Our goal is to support responsible tourism like this across India and possibly beyond and we are looking for a dynamic and visionary leader to make this happen.”
The individual, who will be part of a young, international organization, should bring a sense of passion and enjoyment to their work, have a dedication to social change, be able to work well with people of all backgrounds, and be prepared to “muck in” to bring a hands-on familiarity to all aspects of the business.
Your responsibilities
· Envision a strategy for the expansion of tours beyond Mumbai, and lead the team to expansion
· Manage the existing tours in Mumbai, meeting regularly with key staff
· Manage and support our existing Marketing Director
· Explore other ideas beyond tours for the growth of RTT, such as “voluntourism”
· Manage budgets, accounts, and controls
· Achieve clearly defined, mutually agreed upon, revenue targets
· Work with the founders and Reality Gives Executive Director in discussing a strategy for the dynamic Reality Group model
Skills and experience required
· You have experience working in the tour industry
· You have a vision of how to take Reality Tours forward
· You are a leader, have outstanding communication skills and have experience of leading a team of at least 10 staff
· You have experience managing budgets, accounts and controls
· You are detail orientated and a systems thinker
· You are passionate about social change
· You are familiar with India and its challenges.
· You love to “get stuff done”
About Reality Tours and Reality Gives
In September 2005, Chris Way (from UK) along with his Indian friend Krishna Pujari, formed a tour and travel company called “Reality Tours and Travel” (RTT) in Mumbai. The focal point of the company is local tours of Dharavi- Asia’s reportedly biggest slum. We highlight the many different small scale industries in the area (total annual turnover is approximately $US 665 million) as well as aim at breaking down the negative image of Dharavi, and of slums in general.
The tours have been covered extensively in the local and International press, including The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The New York Times, The Economist, and Smithsonian magazine (USA).
We are now taking up to 1,400 visitors per month through Dharavi during the peak tourist season.
We also run other tours in Mumbai such as a bicycle tour, market tour, Mumbai by night tour, a village tour, but th Dharavi tours represent over 90% of our business.
We are a genuine social business- 80% of profits from all out tours are invested in the Dharavi Community. We do this through our sister organisation Reality Gives, which was set up in August 2009, although we have been running a Community and Education Centre since May 2007
The mission of Reality Gives initially focused on providing quality education to children from deprived backgrounds. From 2009 to 2012 we have run a kindergarten, community centre, English language support classes in a local government school and a cricket program.
Through our work in Dharavi and our connections to outside entities who have wanted to support social causes outside of the field of education, we began to realize that Reality Gives could do much more for the community. From 2012 we started a new initiative to build connections to other NGOs in the Dharavi community. We believe that there are many issues in Dharavi which need to be addressed- not just education. While not run by us, we have strong ties to each of these projects either as beneficiaries or co-creators of the programs; we only endorse projects which have the potential to grow and we monitor to make sure that the projects achieve their goals. We also provide non-financial support, using our staff's expertise and knowledge of Dharavi.
Although at early stages, examples of these connections are a football for girls program (started May 2012), a Urban Beekeeping program, an Art program and a nutritional program. We also continue to run our existing programs.
Reality Gives has a registered charity in the UK, which is used for fundraising for the new programs
For further information, please visit www.realitytoursandtravel.com and www.realitygives.org
Application Process
There is no Application Deadline, although the process will finish when we find the suitable candidate.Please email your CV and brief letter of interest to chris@realitytoursandtravel.com. We will then send you an application form
No comments: