OUR PILLARS

'To travel is to immerse yourself’ - VARIETY CARES™ is a creative non profit foundation that ties together a like minded community of worldwide travelers who share the notion that 'to travel is to immerse yourself, with the destination and her people at heart. Our three guiding principals are:

CLEAN OCEANS 4ALL
Our ocean is the natural playground that keeps us alive and allows us to experience the world at its most beautiful pace. We owe it our love.

GENDER EQUALITY 4ALL
Gender equality means human equality; from women empowerment to accepting our gender spectrum differences we create a stronger world for all.

EDUCATION 4ALL
The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page. Join us as we share our love for education with youth worldwide lacking access to such.

"We don't just believe in giving back, we believe in giving." - Lakis Venetopoulos

OUR MISSION IS TO PROVIDE A SUSTAINABLE SEA-GOING PLATFORM FOR ENGAGING OUR GUESTS IN MEANINGFUL COMMUNICATION AND EXCHANGE OF VALUES WITH THE LOCAL COMMUNITIES WE VISIT.

OUR

MISSION

OUR

ACTIONS

Ocean clean up by variety cruises' members

OCEAN PROTECTION

In addition to planning and coordinating clean beach-ups for our natural playground, we join hands with 4OCEAN whose professional cleanup crews have recovered millions of pounds of plastic and debris since 2017.

SUSTAINABILITY is a word we do not take lightly. We strive for a world where ‘at home at sea’ is not a luxury of our time, but a standard for generations to come as we join the United Nations’ sustainable development goals and embrace our natural playground with love and care. Monitoring our impact on the environment with ships running on Marine diesel Oil, reducing plastic waste via our in continuous development single-use plastic reduction plan, and adhering to stringent policies on garbage management; are some of the practical ways we do so, but that is just the beginning.

A poster of the film Draw with Me with a member of the LGBTQ

LGBTQ+ ACCEPTANCE

VARIETY CARES takes great pride in joining hands with ITHAKA FILMS and THE TREVOR PROJECT in supporting an impactful campaign around LGBTQ+ Equality with the short film DRAW WITH ME.

DRAW WITH ME is a film directed by Constantine Venetopoulos in partnership with THE TREVOR PROJECT about the coming out journey of a youth who identifies as trans and about how their art became their outlet for self expression, while on the complex journey of having to be yourself in a world that at times struggles with diversity. The film has since become an impactful campaign and has screened at schools worldwide as well as the United Nations.

A school at lamin koto with a kid in the yard

LAMIN KOTO SCHOOL

The School founded in 2012 provides 100 local children their first steps to a strong education. The school facilitates English Arabic education for the local community peacefully uniting under one roof with art at the forefront.

INSIDE OUT X LAMIN KOTO

On March 2, 2011, JR won the TED prize at the TED Conference in Long Beach, California, and called for the creation of a global participatory art project with the potential to change the world. This project is called INSIDE OUT. Inspired by JR’s large‐format street “pastings”, INSIDE OUT gives everyone the opportunity to share their portrait and make a statement for what they stand for. It is a global platform for people to share their untold stories and transform messages of personal identity into works of public art.

KUNTAUR FILM FESTIVAL

KUNTAUR FILM FESTIVAL is a children’s film festival spreading classical film joy to rural villages without access to electricity using portable projectors and mobile sustainable generators.

EXPLORER’S CLUB x VARIETY CRUISES

The goal of the partnership is to innovate and expand the Lamin Koto School and make it a prototype for education in the region.

As part of the expansion of the school, Variety Cares transformed an abandoned building into a museum named “The Rose Museum”, in honor of its founder Triantafyllos Venetopoulos, whose first name means “rose” in Greek.

The museum will exhibit significant objects donated by the Explorers Club, including a piece from NASA’s spaceship, a flag of the Explorers Club that went to space and a piece of a comet among other items. Other educational materials include maps, books and compasses donated to the museum from a variety of sources including Variety Cruise customers.