Travel Counsellors agents are being encouraged to support a scheme to link thousands of schoolchildren worldwide.
The project aims to link 2,000 schools in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the UK over the next five years.
Travel Counsellors has donated £200,000 to the school-linking project run by community development organisation Plan UK.
Travel Counsellors chairman David Speakman said the company’s home-based travel agents could get involved by encouraging their local schools to sign up. “Our travel counsellors are mums and dads and they could provide local schools with information,” he said.
The scheme will enable children in the UK to contact pupils in Kenya, for example, via the Internet and text messages to talk about their different lifestyles.
Speakman added: “It fits in with the UK school curriculum it ticks the boxes in terms of geo-graphy and social awareness.”