More than five years after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans continues to need help rebuilding.

Enter the Culinary Corps.

Photo: Julie Schwietert

Founded by chef and social entrepreneur Christine Carroll, the Culinary Corps, dubbed the “Peace Corps for Cooks,” makes annual trips to the Gulf Coast to cook for volunteers, learn more about New Orleans’ culinary culture, and to participate in community building projects to restore New Orleans’ infrastructure and spirit.

Professional chefs are invited to submit an application for this year’s trip, which is scheduled for April 16-22, 2009. Applications are accepted through March 14. Chefs selected for this year’s Corps will cook for volunteers at Habitat for Humanity’s Camp Hope, Common Ground, Slow Food Mississippi, and the Edible School Yard NOLA, among other locations.

Other special highlights include:

-Visits to the Crescent City Farmers’ Market and the famous Cafe du Monde
-Behind the scenes tour at Cochon Butcher
-Tour of the Southern Food and Beverage Museum
-Dinners at The Bourbon House, The Shed, and Cochon (ranked by the New York Times as one of the nation’s 10 best restaurants)
-Evening of food, fun, and music and Rock-n-Bowl
-Private dinner at Dooky Chase, a New Orleans culinary institution
-New Orleans recovery tour with Share Our Strength

For more information, or to apply, please click here. To learn more about the organization, please read the Matador article, “The Peace Corps for Cooks: Volunteer Travel with the Culinary Corps.”

Over the past few years, after decades of tension and on-again off-again violence, the disputed, war-torn Indian territory of Kashmir has been on a slow road to recovery and stability.

And today, the BBC reports on the latest sign that the area is finding a fresh start:

They’re skiing in Kashmir.

From the story:

There is a crowd outside the ski shop in Gulmarg where young girls and boys accompanied by their parents are all dressed for slaloming down the slopes. For the first time, local Kashmiris outnumber foreign adventure tourists here. All are enjoying a welcome respite from the years of bloodshed that have meant recreational activities such as this have not been possible.

The whole story is worth a read — the anecdotes about Kashmiri kids snowplowing for the first time just might make you choke up a little.

And hey, if you wind up powder-hunting in Kashmir, let us know how it goes!

Photo by Prabhu B (Creative Commons)

Photo: Pot Noodle

We don’t want to toot our own horn–well, not too much– but thanks to our supportive community of readers and contributors, Matador is a finalist in two categories of Lonely Planet’s Travel Blogger Awards!

Matador Goods is a finalist in the Best Consumer Travel Blog category, and Matador Network is up for an award in the Best Group Authored Blog category.

We’re also proud to announce that regular contributors Audrey Scott and Craig Martin have also been nominated in the categories of Best Travelogue and Best Podcast, respectively.

Voting opened today and will run through March 20, 2009 at 12 AM Pacific Time. You can vote once in each of the 14 categories.

Thanks for being a part of the world’s most exciting online travel community!

Photo: diongillard

He who owns the medium controls the message

Liberal and conservative forces in South Korea are jockeying in parliament, on the streets, and inside newsrooms in an impassioned battle that could determine the future face of news in the nation. At stake are controlling positions in the boardrooms of influential broadcasters like MBC and KBS, and perhaps the political freedom of Korean journalism.

In early January, due process in the Seoul National Assembly descended into a melee as opposition lawmakers took a sledgehammer to a locked meeting room door in an attempt to physically block a set of bills that would — among other things — allow newspapers to own stakes in broadcast companies.

The administration of President Lee Myung-bak and his Grand National Party have been avidly pushing such deregulation measures, arguing they would stimulate innovation and create jobs. But the opposition is worried that conservative print heavyweight the Chosun Daily (which favors Lee) and similar papers will take full advantage of the revision to wield enormous power over public opinion.

The bills are still pending, to be dealt with in an ongoing special session this month.

Continue reading this post >>

Poor ramen noodle-eating college students… it’s so hard for you to afford travel. Especially if your dream is to journey abroad.

[Satbir]

Enter Sosauce.

Sosauce is an internet start up company offering “travel geeks” a place to “create, view, and share their travel experiences.” The company is offering an eight week marketing internship this summer for college students or recent grads who are interested in using web and multimedia applications to draw attention to and inspire action about social issues.

Upon completing the internship, interns will be eligible for a two week travel abroad experience, with expenses paid by Sosauce.

Hopefully, meals will consist of more than ramen.

For full details, visit Sosauce’s Will Work for Travel site here.

Travelers — are you looking for businesses to support on your travels that do tourism right?

Or do you know a worthy individual who has put his or her heart into a sustainable endeavor?

Well, you’re in luck. National Geographic and Ashoka’s Changemakers are just getting the second annual Geotourism Challenge started, seeking out and honoring individuals devoted to “tourism that sustains or enhances the geographical character of a place — its environment, culture, aesthetics, heritage and the well-being of its residents.”

Sounds about right, doesn’t it?

Head to the competition website to nominate worthy innovators, check out the other nominees, and engage in a constructive discussion about sustainable travel. The nomination phase closes May 20, 2009.

After that date, the competition’s panel of judges will create a shortlist of finalists — and after that, it’s back to us to vote!

Photo by m o d e (Creative Commons)

If you’re a traveling film-maker, or just a big fan of travel videos, and you haven’t yet discovered Tripfilms, the travel-focused video sharing website, then now’s the time to venture over!

Tripfilms is currently putting on the first annual Trippy Awards, to honour the best videos from its community members. The categories are fun and thoughtful: take the Hop On A Plane Award, for instance, which will go to the most inspiring or wanderlust-inducing video.

The nominees have already been selected, but you can still check them all out and vote for your favorites — the ballot closes on March 1st.

Meanwhile, if you’re still learning, and looking for the skills to compete for a Trippy Award in future, be sure to check out this excellent, helpful article: 8 Useful Online Tools for Traveling Filmmakers.

Photo by MK Media Productions (Creative Commons)

Photo: anthony goto

Earlier this week, Matador Change published an article by Dominic DeGrazier about a company offering travelers “insider tours” of the favelas–or slums–of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Soon, travelers who book a trip with Favela Tour may notice some unexpected technological developments: high-speed internet access has arrived in the slums of Rio.

In Friday’s issue of the O Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper, journalist Alexandre Rodriguez reported that Rio’s Dona Marta Favela will be the first Rio slum to receive free high speed internet access.

Already, 16 antennas have been installed throughout Dona Marta, an investment in technological infrastructure expected to provide 10,000 residents with internet access.

The provision of wireless internet in the favelas is part of a larger project called Orla Digital, which launched similar services in Copacabana’s marginalized neighborhoods last July.

That launch allowed the project to work out some logistical difficulties–including intense demand placed on the system by eager users– and the spread of the project to Rio is viewed positively by many groups.

As Rodriguez noted:

“In spite of their poverty, the better part of homes in the favelas of Rio do have computers, and young people use them every day.”

Now, they won’t have to rely upon improvised connections to access the internet.

Ahh, YouTube. You never fail to turn up creative little homemade gems, and I love you for it.

Check out this really unusual “video” — it’s 1400 still images from a day at Quebec City’s winter carnival, spliced together to form a moving picture, without the use of any video capture technology!

Besides being a very cool medium, it also gives a great sense of the city and its world-famous festival.

To learn more about the photographer behind this clip, check out Scott Achs Photography.

Feature photo by A Well Dressed Bullet (Creative Commons)

Photo: r0bz

The news might have escaped the notice of the media outside Latin America, but last week’s announcement that three of the region’s past presidents got together to call for marijuana decriminalization was worthy of front page analysis in Mexico.

Ernesto Zedillo, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, and Cesar Gaviria, former presidents of Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia, respectively, founded and currently serve as co-presidents of the Latin American Commission of Drugs and Democracy.

The Commission, whose 17 members represent the intellectual creme de la creme of Latin America (including writers Tomas Eloy Martinez of Argentina, Mario Vargas Llosa of Peru, and Paulo Coelho of Brazil), have been studying the drug problem in the Americas, and recently came to the conclusion that the strategy of the War on Drugs itself is the biggest culprit when it comes to the persistence of drug-related ills in the region.

In their report, “Drugs and Democracy: Toward a Paradigm Shift,” the Commission wrote:

“The in-depth revision of current drug policies is even more urgent in Latin America in light of their enormous human and social costs and threats to democratic institutions.”

The former presidents and their fellow commission members don’t deny the problems perpetuated by their own countries, nor do they assign blame to any other country. Instead, the LACDD members challenge the “prejudices, fears, and ideological visions” that serve to “inhibit public debate,” a condition, they say, which only makes our mutual social problems more dangerous.

Photo: aforero

In addition to forwarding some rather radical visions of drug treatment (namely, viewing drug use and its treatment as a public health problem, not a criminal problem), the LACDD calls for studying the feasibility of decriminalizing marijuana, and instituting medical marijuana programs for patients with legitimate health problems that might be alleviated by marijuana use.

Though the report doesn’t say so, the decriminalization of marijuana–if it does indeed occur–may have other positive implications for Latin America, too. Given that marijuana remains difficult to obtain legally throughout most of the United States, Latin American countries that decriminalize marijuana may see a surge in tourism. Que bien!