A Statement from Indagare Founder Melissa Biggs Bradley

I founded Indagare on the belief that embracing different cultures and experiences broadens our minds, opens our hearts, and transforms us and our societies for the better. We go out into the world curious, ready to listen—and the stories of others inspire and activate us. Last week, we began listening at home. We pushed ourselves and each other to have difficult, probing conversations, and we committed to reading more, learning more, listening more and collectively keeping each other accountable to work to end systemic racism in this country.As a company, we are committed to addressing issues of racism against BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) communities, both here and abroad. I know that as a company and travel community, we can do more, starting with self-reflection and education, and then following with internal commitments and actions to add greater diversity to our team, in our industry partnerships, in our content and in our programming.Two weeks ago, in one of our Indagare Global Conversations, Gail Straub, co-founder of the Empowerment Institute and the Imagine Project, which brings empowerment techniques to disenfranchised communities in the Middle East and Africa, explained that she goes out into the world following the principles of “good citizen diplomacy,” which includes not telling, but listening. She said: “I have a voice, but the most important voices are the voices in the field, so a sense of deep respect for any human...is what we need to bring. It’s interesting how during this pandemic we have all been thinking about this, the sense that we’re all in this together. As Maya Angelou famously said, ‘We’re much more alike than we are different.’ ”At Indagare, we have always believed this, but we also know that we can do so much better —and that it starts with listening closely in America itself, and committing to anti-racism every single day.Learn more about Indagare Global Conversations, and our Indagare Global Classroom program or sign up here.