Your department, district or alumni cohort — your dates

Who this is for

• District PD and curriculum offices sending teachers for immersion and classroom observation
• Independent-school trip organizers
• World-language departments
• University faculty running a faculty-led course or a study-abroad term
• Alumni-relations offices planning a reunion travel program
• Purpose-driven retreats with a language or service focus

Most groups run 12 to 18. Ten is the minimum and twenty the maximum. Programs typically run 8–14 days; university study abroad runs from two weeks to two months.

What a private program includes

• An in-country director with your group throughout, and 24/7 bilingual support
• Hotels vetted for groups
• All ground transport and all meals
• One to three pre-departure orientations, including for parents where that helps
• Recruitment support: informational Zoom sessions and materials you can send home
• An itinerary we build with you rather than hand to you

What makes it private is the rest: your dates, your academic focus, your pace. If your department is teaching a unit on Senegalese literature, we’ll do our best to arrange a meeting with the author. If your district’s PD goal is classroom practice, we weight the schedule toward school visits and teacher-to-teacher time.

What your travelers actually do

We meet with Senegalese university faculty, students and researchers, and visit secondary and elementary schools in cities and rural communities — classroom observation and real student-to-student conversation that conventional operators cannot arrange.

Alongside that: family meals and home hospitality, Gorée, batik and djembé workshops, conversations with authors, researchers, griots and environmental activists, and community service.

Your travelers speak French all day, with people who are not being paid to be patient with them.

How it works

1. A conversation. Who is traveling, roughly when, what the trip has to accomplish, and what you can spend. Usually 30 to 45 minutes.
2. A proposal. A day-by-day itinerary at a fixed price per traveler, with what is included spelled out — something you can take to your principal, dean or business office.
3. Revisions. Most groups go through two or three rounds.
4. A contract, sent once you accept the proposal.
5. Recruitment. We join your information night or run a Zoom session, and give you materials to send home.
6. Enrollment. Registration begins here and completes on our booking site, where each traveler pays individually on a payment plan. Alternatively, payments and enrollment can be managed by the organization.
7. Pre-departure. One to three orientations covering language, culture, health, packing and expectations.
8. Travel, with an in-country director alongside throughout.

Start the conversation 18 to 24 months ahead.

Safety, and what your institution will ask for

• Liability coverage up to $2 million, and we can name your school, district or university as additional insured
• Written health and safety protocols and crisis response plans, which we send for your risk-management office to review

If your board needs documentation in a particular format, ask — we have been through these reviews before.

Cost

One fixed price per traveler, with everything it covers spelled out in the proposal, so nothing is discovered later. Organizations can choose to pay Vive directly, or have their travelers pay individually on a payment plan.

Optional graduate credit through Southern Utah University is arranged separately, either by the individual traveler or at the program level.

Start the conversation

Tell us who you are hoping to travel with, roughly when, and what you want the trip to do. There is no cost to the first conversation and no obligation after it — sometimes the honest answer is that a scheduled program fits you better, and we will say so.