Malía Everette, CEO and founder of Altruvistas promotes in-depth experiential education and socially responsible travel as an alternative to the type of "sun and fun" tourism that often results in cultural homogenization and does little to benefit local communities and host economies.

From 1997-2013, Malía was the Director of Global Exchange's Reality Tours program. During her tenure at Reality Tours she oversaw the growth and development of alternative travel programs, study seminars and fact finding human rights delegations to over 45 global destinations. After two decades of experience pioneering cultural and educational exchanges and ecotours for other organizations, foundations, educational institutions, and families in 2013 she founded Altruvistas, a foundation and travel company to promote transformational philanthropy and social responsibility in the travel industry. Altruvistas customized journey program creates privately branded trips for our partners utilizing the pillars of experiential education, philanthropy and social responsibility while our intentional meso-financing programs & professional fellowships provide communities the financial tools they need to improve their lives and benefit from the tourism sector. Malía facilitates experiences around the world focusing on international relations, human rights, political economy, sustainable development, women's issues and the resilience of indigenous cultures, and much more.

Malía is involved with many local environmental and human rights groups in the San Francisco Bay Area. She co-founded the Richmond Progressive Alliance and served as a Human Rights Commissioner for Contra Costa County and was an advisor for the Women’s Earth Alliance. Currently she serves on the boards of the Institute of Agriculture and Food Policy (Food First), the Ethical Traveler, THRIVE-Gulu,Witness for Peace SouthWest and Bay Area Green Tours.

Malía has a Bachelors of Art in English Literature and a Masters of Arts in International Relations. She has written numerous articles about socially responsible travel and is a regular speaker and lecturer. Most recently she was a contributor to the The Blue Pages: A Directory of Companies Rated by Their Politics and Practices (2010), UNWTO’s “Religious Tourism in Asia and the Pacific” (2011) and The Good Company Social (2015).

In January 2013, she joined the faculty at San Francisco State University in Tourism and Recreation Management as a professor of Ecotourism and joined the World Learning team at the School of International Training to organize their Climate Change program. Perhaps most importantly, Malía is the proud mother of two intrepid, curious and very well traveled sons!