The "School Bus" project: helping children from remote villages in Azerbaijan to study.

A good friend of mine founded his social enterprise Camping Azerbaijan in 2014. Any nature lovers who have passed through Azerbaijan will have been infected by their love of nature and the hidden trails they discover through the mountains. Their eco-tourism business helps them touch remote communities that otherwise have very difficult livelihoods, often high up along moutain paths.

However in addition to their tourism activities, they also carry out small-scale projects to support children in the communities they get to know along the way, which have often been forgotten amid the glitz of oil-boom Baku. The words of one of the team, "the only connection these villages have to the government is the electricity pipes."

Camping Azerbaijan (and their social project arm Kendabad ) raise all of their funds through individual donations - so I want to reach out to friends to see if we can help them raise funds for their next project.

Some of those projects involve the team trekking 100km through deep snow dressed as Santa Claus, to deliver gifts...

Others bringing village children to discover the capital Baku for the first time...

However in this case, the project concerns school transportaiton. The idea began with the discovery that many of the children in the remoate villages where Azerbaijan takes hikers were walking up to two hours each way - often up and down steep hills - to make it to school. This mean that a lot of children, particularly young girls, would miss out on many days of school. It also means that bad weather means no studies. In reponse, last year the "Camping Azerbaijan" team launched a project whereby they paid for schools buses and drivers to transport the children to and from school.

This year they want to continue the project for another year. The three routes the team aim to provide this year are:

1. Kohnedakhar-Qendov, in the Ismailli region (around 260GBP required per month)

2. Qoturğan+Arçan-Qənərçay, (around 120 GBP required per month)

3. Muçu+Çarxaçı+Rəngdar-Xaltan, in the Shahdag region (around 120 GBP required per month)

So go look them up on Google Earth!

I myself have travelled to many of these villages and seen the impact of the work. I can also guarantee that 100% of any money donated will go directly toward the project, delivered personally by myself! It doesn't take much money to keep these buses going, but has a huge impact.

Please let me know if you have any questions. Your support would be really important.

The video below shows a clip of a group of school children using the bus provided from Kohnedakhar village last year: