Sally Hetherington OAM is the founder and CEO of Human and Hope Association Incorporated (Australia). At the age of 25, Sally bought a one-way ticket to Siem Reap, Cambodia, with the goal of helping people living in poverty. She soon gained the realisation that community sustainable development cannot be achieved through the involvement of voluntourists (short-term foreign volunteers).
During the journey, she transformed a community centre into a locally run NGO registered organisation – Human and Hope Association (Cambodia). Sally’s strong belief in local empowerment for community sustainability led to the selfless decision of making herself redundant at the end of the four-year transformation process.
Human and Hope Association Incorporated was subsequently established under Sally’s leadership, with the purpose of raising funds to empower communities to reduce inequalities and spread awareness about the importance of local empowerment. Sally uses her speaking engagements, philanthropic field trips to Cambodia and her book, ‘It’s Not About Me’, to educate Australians on how voluntourism is not a sustainable solution for communities to develop.
Sally has spoken at events Australia-wide, including at universities, companies, service clubs and conferences.
“Sally was an engaging, passionate, and authentic speaker. Not only did Sally effectively highlight the issues with the current state of ‘voluntourism’, but she also provided practical examples of ways that individuals can support communities and become an ethical traveller. Sally’s talk was interactive and real, and it left everybody with a sense of empowerment; that we are capable of making an impact on a global issue by changing our individual actions and spreading the message that we must travel ethically. We would absolutely love to have Sally come and speak again!” – Engineers Without Borders Humanitarian Engineering Conference.
More information about Sally and her speaking engagements can be found at sallyhetherington.com.