Even before it had a name, the Atypique Foundation already existed in the way we worked and lived in Sri Lanka.
Since the creation of Atypique Lanka in 2012, the agency has grown with a simple conviction : travel can create value well beyond the trip itself. Over the years, it has enabled a team to grow in the office, numerous drivers and guides to work regularly, but also small family-run structures and independent service providers to make a living from activities we had chosen to highlight.
In 2019, we decided to go further and give a framework to a commitment that had, until then, been spontaneous. The Atypique Foundation was born.
Before the Atypique Foundation, the groundwork was already there
Living in Sri Lanka also means knowing the fragility of certain balances. Floods, landslides, and other natural disasters regularly affect the island, and over the years we had gotten into the habit of providing help whenever we could.
Sometimes, events touched us even more closely. In the remote area of Morawaka, Danapala and his family hosted our travelers for overnight stays with local families. When a tree fell onto their home, we reached out to our travelers to help them deal with the damage. This mobilization was one of the turning points.
Atypique was growing. We now had the opportunity to turn these occasional actions into a more structured commitment, capable of supporting projects over the long term. The creation of the Atypique Foundation in 2019, by Marjorie and Chamika, helped formalize this desire.
How does the Atypique Foundation work and how is it funded?
The principle is deliberately simple: for each traveler, Atypique Voyages contributes €10 to the Atypique Foundation.
Trip after trip, these contributions feed a dedicated fund. It then makes it possible to finance projects identified on the ground, without depending only on occasional fundraising or emergency situations.
This mechanism creates a direct link between the growth of tourism activities and the Foundation’s ability to act. The more travelers Atypique supports, the more the fund can grow and support new initiatives.
Depending on circumstances, additional contributions may also help strengthen this envelope, as was the case during certain natural disasters. But the core funding remains this systematic contribution built into the agency’s very operations.
The idea is not to multiply actions, but to have the resources needed to support projects that align with the two pillars that structure the Foundation today: the empowerment of women and education.
The first chapter of this story is also a story of pushing beyond one’s limits.
In 2019, Sri Lankan triathlete Puvini qualifies for the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championships held in Nice. An exceptional performance that was set to make her the first Sri Lankan to represent her country at this level.
However, there was still the question of being able to finance the trip. Atypique covered the necessary costs so she could travel to France and continue this sporting adventure. A few months later, Puvini set off from Nice.
This first project already said a lot about what would become one of the Foundation’s guiding threads: giving women the means to go further when opportunities exist but resources are lacking.
In tea plantations, an ambitious project interrupted by Covid
Another project was particularly close to our hearts.
In Sri Lanka’s tea plantations, women have historically held the jobs of tea pickers, while management roles have largely remained male. With the support of a specialized Canadian researcher, we had imagined a professional empowerment program for some of these women.
The first step would take them to Colombo to discover the Colombo Tea Auction, better understand the stages that follow picking, and gain a broader view of an industry of which they are nonetheless an essential link.
Ultimately, the goal was to identify and support profiles capable of moving into positions with greater responsibility within the plantations. Everything was funded. The trip was scheduled to take place in March 2020. Then the world stopped. Sri Lanka closed its borders and the Covid crisis profoundly disrupted the country. In the end, the project was never able to take the form we had imagined.
Looking back, it was undoubtedly very ambitious—perhaps even a little utopian. But it helped clarify what still matters to us today: trying to create opportunities and new perspectives, rather than limiting ourselves to one-off assistance.
Education as a second pillar
As the projects unfolded, a second focus naturally emerged: education.
In a particularly remote village in the province of Uva, the Atypique Foundation funded the construction of a library. Together with the Wakamoun association, the project was accompanied by an intercultural stay bringing together young people from France, Madagascar, and Sri Lanka.
The idea went beyond building a simple facility: creating a space for sharing and meeting, circulating not only knowledge but also experiences and viewpoints. This focus on education can still be seen today in one of the Foundation’s most important projects.
After Ditwah: rebuilding, but also preparing for what comes next
When Cyclone Ditwah struck Sri Lanka hard, the first necessity was to help quickly. The Atypique Foundation and the teams mobilized to deliver essential supplies to the affected communities.
Then came the time to look beyond the emergency.
In a public school near Rangala, at the heart of the tea plantation region, a landslide had destroyed, among other things, the restrooms. The Foundation committed to a broader project: rebuilding the facilities, providing access to safe drinking water, and gradually creating a computer space for students.
Empowerment of women and education: two guiding lines
The Atypique Foundation has never been intended to multiply projects just to multiply them.
Its story is made of encounters, opportunities seized, successes—but also projects that circumstances sometimes prevented from coming to fruition. Over time, two priorities have taken shape: women’s empowerment and education.
Our approach is intentionally local: identifying needs we understand, working with people we know, and supporting projects we can follow.
Atypique Voyages has grown since Sri Lanka and today continues its story across several destinations in Asia. But the idea that gave rise to the Foundation remains the same: if travel allows our company to grow, this growth should also give us more resources to take action in the areas that make these trips possible.
And with €10 donated to the Foundation for each traveler, each of these trips contributes—at its own level—to writing what comes next.
