Papillon Virtual Tours
Eleven good reasons to order our virtual tours:
- Explore Mail without having to leave your home.
- Visit places where travel is currently not possible (even when the borders reopen).
- Visit places that are off the beaten tourist tracks (and add them to your Mali wish list).
- Get a taste of Mali’s traditional kitchen.
- Explore the arts of Mali.
- Meet the Papillon Reizen guides and team members.
- The Papillon Reizen team members benefit from every virtual tour sold.
- You support the Papillon Reizen team and their families to make it beyond this crisis.
- Original gifts for friends and family.
- Made with love, enthusiasm, and passion.
During the 2020 worldwide crisis - and a military coup in Mali that same year - the activities of Papillon Reizen came to a standstill. Papillon Reizen had seen a multitude of crises since its start in 2010, including military coups, health crises, rebellions, jihadist threats and foreign military interventions. Resilience and the flexibility to adapt to new situation had always been key. The 2020 crisis however was of a different kind, leaving substantially fewer options. Wondering what to do, the plan got shape to bring Mali to the world through online tours. Together with the people of the Papillon Reizen team, she set to work to create virtual tours.
“Our love for Mali, its people and culture gave us the courage and the wings to give it a go regardless of the lack of professional equipment and experience in this field. We simply decided to start with a pocketsize digital camera, a couple of spare batteries, a pile of memory cards and our enthusiasm”, Monique explains.
After cooking a local dish with her assistant Mariama, a do-it-yourself mud cloth product was created with good friend Souleymane, the owner of the Ségou-based bogolan workshop Centre Soroblé. In the meantime other members of the Papillon Reizen team had gotten all enthusiastic to jump into the world of guiding virtual tours and soon the number of tours grew, covering a fair part of the country, including both well-known places and little-known gems.
“Our virtual tours are not staged. They are 100% natural and give an image of the real Mali, including everyday background noises, and sounds of people, traffic, radios and braying donkeys :-)”
Being a social entrepreneur has always been important to Monique. Therefore fair prices were paid for the creation of the tours, and part of the revenues is given back to the people involved in the tours and experiences. By buying a tour or experience you automatically support the guide, cook, artist or a carefully selected local project.
“It is my aim to bring Mali to the world, and to make a huge success of the Papillon Virtual Tours series. By doing so, our team members and their families become financially independent as well.”
Together we make the world a better and fairer place.