Jambo! Greetings from Nairobi, Kenya. I am pleased to join the other Raxa Collective contributors and share some wonderful stories of entrepreneurial conservation from here in Eastern Africa! However, before I jump into it, you may be wondering how a little Asian-American girl from New Jersey ended up in Africa. I’ll tell you about myself before jumping into my first blog post!By way of background, I recently graduated from Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration with a minor in Urban and Regional Studies. I’ve spent most of my academic and professional career in the hospitality industry. However, during my junior year at Cornell, I embarked on an adventure that would find me exploring an atypical “Hotelie” path.

I spent the winter of 2009 externing at the Tribe Village Market Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya, where I was exposed to the dynamic Kenyan culture. Nairobi was my pit stop before studying abroad in Barcelona, Spain. I had always held a keen interest in sustainability, I took a Sustainable Tourism class at Ramon Llull University, Turismo Sant. Ignasi, which raised my interest in this sector. While abroad, I was fortunate enough to do a bit of traveling throughout Spain, Italy, The Netherlands, and Morocco. The travel bug led me to a summer that changed my life and perspective on the meaning of sustainability and conservation.

Last summer, I interned at Panigram Resort, a socially and environmentally responsible boutique resort located in south-western Bangladesh (currently under development). For 60 days, my fellow interns and I were immersed in the beauty of rural Bangladesh’s vibrant culture, community, and natural beauty. As the sustainable hospitality intern, I worked on a host of project during the summer. For example, I helped develop a local community’s recycling business, oversaw the construction of a bamboo mud visitor center, modeled a carbon footprint calculator, and taught English classes to Bangladeshi children.

Perhaps the biggest undertaking I was a part of was Panigram’s social research and outreach project. Many of our days were spent surveying local businesses and homes, interacting with kids at their local schools, observing health facilities and living conditions, participating in decorative cultural festivals, and simply taking the time to understand Hakimpur (the town in which Panigram Resort is located). These moments were crucial in building trust within the community and gaining an understanding of what would actually benefit the community. If you want to read more about how I taught kids about germs by using lentil beans or how Tim Chen managed to gather survey results on more than 700 individuals, check out Panigram’s blog.

The Bangladesh experience opened my eyes to the importance of heritage conservation and the major impacts (both positive and negative) that tourism can have on its host community and country. I was fascinated. So, when I finally arrived back to Cornell, I broadened my course load to study regional development, green cities, and research theory in the social sciences. When the time came to figure out post-graduation plans, I was at a bit of a crossroads and reached out to mentors for guidance. La Paz Group was gracious enough to offer me an amazing opportunity to work on a project in the Galapagos Islands. However, I felt torn: I wanted management experience, but I didn’t want the big box hotel management-in-training program. Fortunately, I stumbled upon an opportunity to manage an expatriate camp in the world’s newest nation, South Sudan. Through my travels in East Africa and encounters while working in a country desperate for sustainable development, I’ll do my best to report back interesting instances of conservation entrepreneurship!