Looking to be more than just a tourist on your next vacation? Here’s how
Not Just Tourists is an organization that helps travellers take part in humanitarian aid while they are taking vacations. The Manitoba hub for this organization is in Selkirk, and the group is looking for not just tourists, but also local volunteers to help them help others.
“Not Just Tourists is a humanitarian medical non-profit organization that brings medical aid around the world through travellers going to different destinations,” said Tim Blazanovic, Program Director, Not Just Tourists Manitoba.
The way the program works is that travellers going to places, like Cuba, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico, just to name a few, will bring a suitcase with medical supplies with them to their destination and then take some time on their vacation to visit pre-arranged clinics, hospitals, or other places where people need medical supplies and drop the suitcase off.
“We have one person right now going to Africa, to Liberia. We’ve helped the Philippines during different storms, Jamaica, etc. We have a big list on our website of different countries that so far travellers have taken humanitarian medical supplies to,” he said.
The idea behind the name is that for that small portion of your vacation, you aren’t just a tourist but a humanitarian. Blazanovic explained that participating is pretty simple, you just go to their website, select the Winnipeg chapter, and follow the steps.
Originally, the Manitoba Chapter was based out of Winnipeg, but now the operation is run out of Selkirk.
“We are operating, actually, out of Selkirk. We have a donated space in the church basement there at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, that allows us to use it for storing and packing,” said Blazanovic.
Though the church is donating the space for this great cause, the Not Just Tourists group itself is non-denominational and non-political, so everyone is welcome to participate or volunteer.
Blazanovic said that in addition to the traveller volunteers, the group is looking for volunteers from Manitoba to help with packing during the year, which is a fairly low-commitment endeavour as they really just need people to show up and help out a half a dozen times or so during the year. They also accept volunteers who would like to help run suitcases to travellers or pick up donations.
The group has been quite busy lately, as there was an influx of people bringing supplies to Cuba before flights to that country were cancelled earlier this year. The group is also seeing needs for other places growing, and Blazanovic said that he’s had more requests from January until now than they had the entire 2025 year, so the need for more local volunteers and also donations is increasing.
“We’ve even reached out to a lot of our donors and said, ‘Hey, we need anything you can spare, if you have anything,’ and now we’re reaching out to the public also to ask for donations of medical supplies. We do not accept any kind of narcotics or prescription medications because nobody can cross the border with those, of course, so nothing like that, but gloves, masks, bandages, children’s vitamins, children’s Tylenol, or Advil, or anti-histamines, especially for children, stuff like that,” he said.
He explained that though many people generously want to help financially, they don’t take cash donations as they work on a model where they are volunteer-run and only accept donated supplies.
To make it more convenient for those people who want to donate without having to take in cash, they’ve employed technology to help connect people with the items they most need.
“My Travel and Donations Coordinator started an Amazon account with a wish list of some of these items, including stethoscopes, and (items like) that, because we get people always asking,” he said.
In addition to medical supplies, they could also use donations of new or gently used suitcases to help people carry the supplies to their destinations. They’ve even used old hockey bags before
Blazanovic explained that this work of helping to bring medical supplies around the world, one suitcase at a time, makes a difference because, without supplies, the health care workers are limited as to what they can do to help people, and there might be many different reasons these supplies aren’t making it to them.
“They just can’t get the supplies, whether it’s through policies, regulations, embargoes, whatever have you, they just can’t seem to get these supplies (in some places),” he said.
If this is something that you’d be interested in participating in, Blazanovic suggests going to their website, njt.net, and filling out a Volunteer Form for the Winnipeg chapter, which meets up in Selkirk, the Take a Suitcase Form or the Donate Form, depending on how you’d like to help.
“(For Selkirk volunteering, after filling out the form), our volunteer coordinator will be in touch with you thereafter to help make everyone aware of when a packing party, or whatever else, is going on,” said Blazanovic.
He encourages anyone who would like to participate to reach out, as they are a welcoming group of volunteers and would love for new people to come and help out.
“If you’ve got a little bit of time, and you’d like to become not just a tourist but be a humanitarian in your spare time, and come, and volunteer and help us out, please come see what we’re about. Try it out. It’ll make you feel a lot better in your heart knowing that you’re helping hundreds, if not thousands of people,” he said.
To view the group’s Amazon wishlist, you can visit https://www.amazon.ca/hz/wishlist/ls/2BZQFMBRJFY7K?ref_=wl_share.
