Interview of Charly from Nomadic Smiles
We are ambassadors of the association Nomadic Smiles. Here is the interview of Charly, the founder.
Can you introduce yourself and tell us about the Nomades Smiles Association that you founded?
Animated by a caring curiosity, I am first of all a lover of people, before being a passionate of travels and sports. These two domains are, moreover, of infinite human and social richness, and a field of unsuspected self-exploration.
I am a journalist for more than 10 years, Smiles Nomads was initially a simple blog, a place of expression on my travel encounteers. Little by little, it took another dimension by becoming collaborative, so that today everyone can come and share, what I call « nomadic smiles ».
Around the site, we then created the association Sourires Nomades (Nomadic Smiles) which aims to promote responsible tourism and solidarity around travel meetings.
Nomadic Smiles promotes travel encounteers, why is it important to you?
I can not imagine a trip without meeting. Every day, I feed on others, with good and bad sides. So in the trip, I just apply the same state of mind. In my opinion, as in life, a journey is never flat. We have good times, hard times, but what I remember when I return are not landscapes but names, faces, smiles that have transformed my trip.
Behind Nomadic Smiles, there is a whole team of volunteers. Human exchange without a mercantile relationship, that's your travel philosophy?
Completely. It's even a philosophy of life. I assume that if you share without expecting anything from the other, nice surprises happen to you. And this is the case with volunteers who have contributed to the project, to the association.
However, not everything is rosy. Federating around a project, an idea, is not easy. Volunteering is becoming more and more rare nowadays, and our association is far from being the only one concerned.
You are looking for volunteers, can you tell us why?
After many years of existence, the association needs to find new volunteers to take over from those who started the project. We are looking for technical skills for the website, but also more simply enthusiastic people, dynamic, who want to devote some of their time to our initiative.
We try to keep pace with one meeting a month to take stock and move forward on our projects.
In addition to the site Nomadic Smiles, we can imagine many actions, events, to promote responsible tourism and solidarity, but without volunteers invested, nothing can be done.
What will we find if we surf on Nomadic Smiles?
It includes travel meetings of course, hundreds of registered travelers but also associations of the world that are recommended by these nomads or blog posts all more interesting than each other ...
Over the years, we have noticed that Nomades Smiles brings together a lot of content, and our wish is to be able to enhance it on the site. Notice to "graphic-integrator", we need you;)
The site is open to travelers but also to associative projects...
Yes. The idea is to be able to reference associations of the world recommended by travelers to create a link between these two audiences. And more specifically, give the floor to associations. They can communicate about their specific needs that travelers can meet.
And finally, what is your most memorable trip memory humanly?
Without hesitation, my meeting with the young Souleymane in Mali. He is also at the origin of the creation of Nomadic Smiles. This trip was the most humanly for many reasons.
We had a special relationship both during our stay in the Dogon country. An almost fraternal bond had been created, and I will never forget our moments together.
