From 1997-2012, Malía was the director of nonprofit human rights organization Global Exchange’s Reality Tours program. During her tenure at Reality Tours she oversaw the growth and development of alternative travel programs, study seminars, and fact-finding human rights delegations to over 45 global destinations. After two decades of experience pioneering cultural and educational exchanges and ecotours for other organizations, foundations, educational institutions, and families, she founded AltruVistas in 2013. As a foundation and travel company, AltruVistas’ primary goal is to promote transformational philanthropy and social responsibility in the travel industry. The company’s customized journey program creates privately branded trips for our partners, utilizing the pillars of experiential education, philanthropy, and social responsibility—while its intentional meso-financing programs and professional fellowships provide communities the financial tools they need to improve their lives and benefit from the tourism sector.
Malía facilitates experiences around the world, focusing on international relations, human rights, political economy, sustainable development, agroecology, women’s issues, health and healing, responsible business, and the resilience of indigenous cultures. She is an expert on legal travel to Cuba. AltruVistas organizes over 80 domestic and international departures annually.
Malía is involved with many local environmental and human rights groups in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is a co-founder and on the steering committee of the Richmond Progressive Alliance, has served as a Human Rights Commissioner for Contra Costa County, and is an Economic Development Commissioner for the City of Richmond. She has been an advisor for the Women’s Earth Alliance, and has served on the boards of THRIVE-Gulu and the Institute for Food and Development Policy (Food First). Currently she serves as a board member for Ethical Traveler, Witness for Peace Southwest, and Bay Area Green Tours.
Malía has a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature and a Master of Arts degree in International Relations. She has written numerous articles about socially responsible travel and is a regular speaker and lecturer. She has been a contributor to the The Blue Pages: A Directory of Companies Rated by Their Politics and Practices (2010), UNWTO’s “Religious Tourism in Asia and the Pacific” (2011), and “The Good Company: Sustainability in Hospitality, Tourism and Wine” (2015). In 2013, she joined the faculty at San Francisco State University in Tourism and Recreation Management as a professor of Ecotourism, and also joined the World Learning team at the School of International Training to organize their Climate Change program. Perhaps most importantly, Malía is the proud mother of two intrepid, curious, and very well-traveled sons!
Malia Everette is one of the brightest, most transformational, and skilled travelers–and overall dear friends–that I have known. We met a number of years ago on a trip where we bunked as roommates for 2+wks in remarkable Iran, and then traveled together again on a trip to Uganda that resulted in the formation of my and my mother’s beloved NGO there.
Malia breathes creativity and spirit into those around her, and demonstrates inexplicable skill in navigating her international network of resources old and new, while maintaining exceptional curiosity towards the unknown, traveling and collecting friends and relationships along the way.
I would travel to the moon, Tran-Siberia, and back again with Malia, and know fully that we would have experiences along the way that were enriching, educating, and joyous to the core. She pulls out the adventurous and beautiful qualities in those around her like few I have ever seen.
I can’t say enough about what a wonderful travel companion, teacher, student, explorer, and shining unique spirit Malia Everette is. She shows care, compassion, cultural awareness and respect, and has a daily positive outlook no matter how dire the presented situation may seem to an average eye.
Expect to dance with the locals in traditional, vibrant, and authentic cultural circles, and study with deep introspection and in-flowing wisdom the histories and sacred pieces of the intricate puzzles of foreign lands. Malia is a well of the unexpected, exciting, and bountiful. Anyone and everyone would be so lucky to travel this world with her as their companion and/or host.
Thoughtfully, truthfully, and respectfully,