Short Summary
We empower nomadic communities, too often marginalized by governments and settled folks. Their know-how, traditions, relations to the environment are unique, endangered, and need to be sustained.
As a newly established eco-tourism and the organic market, we aim to preserve the nomadic lifestyle by organizing Kooch (transhumance) tours with nomad families and sell numerous of their organic produce and handicrafts on our online store.
Our work contributes to :
- Bring supplementary income to nomad families
-Teach values of nomads' minimalist lifestyle to travelers
- Grow nomad people’s self-esteem about their lifestyle
- Reinforce the pride in their heritage
- Support the continuing of traditional customs
- Promote the role nomadic lifestyle has in the preservation of Iran's unique ecosystem
However, due to Covid19, we have been unable to conduct tours in partnership with nomad families. The online IRANomad Market started in the global Covid-19 pandemic as a solution to keep our social business alive, pursuing both the social goal of "revival of the nomadic intangible assets" and the business goal of "financial independence". Today, your support means everything in our goal of saving Iran's indigenous people.
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What We Need & What You Get
We need you to support our efforts to maintain, despite all current difficulties, our goals of supporting nomadic communities and families. To achieve this, we need :
- a committed team working
- means to develop the nomad market for sharing their productions
- communication tools and content to share the uniqueness of the nomadic lifestyle
As a sign of gratitude for your support, we will offer you unique and personal gifts. These gifts are 100% natural and hand-made, living proofs of the traditional handicrafts and special relations with the environment of the nomads. Coming straight from nomad families, these gifts will be a special acknowledgment of your commitment.
Attention: Keep in mind that some countries have customs regulations that ban the import of dried herbs and honey from other countries (like Australia). Please look up the customs regulations in your country before getting a perk. If you purchase a perk that can't be shipped to your country, you can change the perk or have your money returned.
- $5: Receive 1 digital postcard, featuring a professional photograph of one of our nomadic family partners and a short story about that family.
- Every donation higher than $5 also receives a digital postcard.
- $10: Get a voucher for a coffee/tea and a traditional afternoon snack in our Cultural House in Tehran and get to know more about nomads' customs and traditions.
- Every donation higher than $8 also receives a voucher for the IRANomad Cultural House.
- $20: Donate a book with your note to the children of a nomad family.
- $25: Get 4 small (25gram) packs of handpicked wild mountain herbs or a jar of (250gr) organic honey.
- $35: Participate in a virtual nomadic evening, where you can hear travel stories from previous travelers who visited the nomads, view pictures and videos from the transhumance routes, and even learn some nomadic recipes.
- $50: Receive a jar of organic honey (250gram), produced by a rare species of bees only found in Iranian mountains plus 34small (25gram) packs of handpicked wild mountain herbs gathered in the Bakhtiari mountains.
- $75: Receive 1 small replica of the traditional nomadic black tent of Bakhtiari nomads for you and your children to assemble (picture) + a book introducing Bakhtiari nomads from a general point of view perfect for children around the age of 12.
- $125: Receive the ingredients and recipe to make traditional nomad curd soup (Ash Kashk) including a traditional mortar and pestle to grind the curd, two-kilogram curd (Kashk), ghee, and handpicked mountain herbs.
- $250: Get the whole set of a traditional nomadic men’s outfit including Chogha, nomadic woolen hat, and a handmade woolen bag. Chogha (a striped Bakhtiari jacket) is made from wool and it is an exclusive design for the Bakhtiari nomads. It is light & warm. You have the option to add on the women's nomadic outfit when you check out. We will contact you for the size and details. Bonus, for this donation, you will also receive the link to the virtual nomadic evening.
- $911: Receive vouchers for an all-expenses-paid Kooch tour (Nomads' Odyssey), valid for use over the next three years. During a Kooch tour, you'll get to live with a nomadic family for 5-7 days and get a hands-on experience of their lifestyle, while accompanying them on their seasonal journey through the valleys and hills of the beautiful Zagros mountains. Bonus, for this donation, you will also receive the link to the virtual nomadic evening.
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How It All Started:
It was around three and a half years ago when we, a group of friends, went trekking with a Bakhtiari nomad family. After that, it occurred to us that we can work to stop the imminent extinction of this authentic nomadic lifestyle. So, we got the idea of creating a social business, to kindle a sense of self-esteem in the nomads in a way that they continue their precious lifestyle. In other words, they do not abandon their tents for living in cities.
Read more about us: https://nomad.tours/other/21130/a-brief-history...
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Our Story During Years
So, we came up with a complementary model for rural development. The decision was made after consultation with professional anthropologists and professors. You can read their quotations in the following pictures.
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Who Are We?
IRANomad consists of three different groups working towards the same goal which is preserving micro-cultures, empowering nomads, and rural development. These three business lines will be explained in more details in the following paragraphs:
1. IRANomad Tours
- Environmentally and culturally sustainable tours based in Iran with a focus on nomads and nomadic culture
- An authentic and unfiltered, rarely-witnessed side of Iran that focuses on Iran’s indigenous people: the nomads
- A supplementary income for nomad families in the form of tourism
- Live like a nomad and become a part of a nomadic family: "Nomads' Odyssey" is our featured experience with the most authentic nomads of Iran: the Bakhtiari people
2. IRANomad Market
- An online shop focused on selling organic nomadic produce such as dairy products and wild herbs
- Collected and provided by the nomads
- Selling nomadic products straight from the nomads to the customers
- Helping the sustainability of nomadic lifestyle by providing a supplementary income
- Bringing recognition to the nomadic families and their heritage by sharing their story with the customers in each purchase
3. IRANomad Cultural House
- Café and hub for travel and culture-enthusiasts
- Charming traditional house in Tehran’s oldest neighborhood
- A place to host our nomadic friends and return the hospitality
- Introducing the different nomadic cultures in Iran by organizing workshops, seminars, and talks hosted by other avid travelers
How Do We Help to Preserve Nomadic Lifestyle?
In our work model, the social goal of «Preserving the Nomadic Lifestyle» is valued above all. Here are two examples in the tours and market section that showcase how we try to make each nomadic family an independent unit so that they can become financially self-sufficient even if they choose not to work with us.![]()
1-Sustainability, small group travel, responsible visitors, respect of traditional culture: these are the main principles that we live by in our business. We also take in mind to bring travelers to different families so that no family abandons their actual nomadic life to only make money from tourism.
2-In IRANomad Market, our goal is to make nomads financially independent, in a sustainable way. We cut out all middlemen, and sell the authentic nomadic products straight from the nomads to the customers, ensuring that our nomad partners get the maximum benefit from the sales. Moreover, we tell the story of these nomadic families to every person who makes a purchase.
Our Strengths & Challenges
Strengths:
- We have successfully conducted eco-tours in the last three years and proved ourselves as a committed team to our travelers from all over the world (TripAdvisor comments)
- This is our second campaign and fundraiser
- We have an active blog with top-quality content about nomadic life, traveling to Iran, and eco-travel in the last year even when we were unable to travel and make new content to share
Challenges we face :
- COVID19 continuing in the next 2 years and international travel to Iran remaining suspended, thus depriving us of our main source of revenue
- Transportation issues making it difficult to develop the internationalization of the IRANnomad Market
- Staying alive as a company and being able to maintain our goals
Other Ways You Can Help
Now that you’ve read all our pages, we have 3 more suggestions for you:
1- Share our campaign & be our ambassadors. You can even earn money by promoting this campaign. Read more about our referral contest here and see how you could get a free Kooch tour or earn money while contributing to a cultural cause.
2-Follow our social media: by clicking on the following links: Facebook, Youtube, Instagram
3- Become one of IRANomad’s shareholders if you love the idea of preserving Persian nomadic heritage and believe in us as a team. If you're interested to be an investor in our social business, check out our business plan at this link. You can buy a 0.5% or 1% block share of our stocks.
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