Date for a Cause

For our date this month, Corbin and I went to a fundraising dinner at the Food & Care Coalition.  And yes, he was just as excited about it as I was.  We went to support a friend of mine who will be working with Rising Star Outreach in India this summer.  It was a fun night - they had a raffle and performers and we ate yummy indian food from India Palace (if you've never been there, you should go - it's inexpensive, authentic, and we love the owners).  Corbin was the perfect date.  He enjoyed it and we had a great conversation on the way home.  Sometimes I worry that I am overburdening his little heart with all these stories of sadness around the world, but I have a feeling that he and I are going to accomplish great things in his lifetime.  I love this kid!

In just a few short years since their inception, Rising Star Outreach has done amazing things for those suffering from leprosy.  There are over a million people in India that suffer from this disease, and the saddest part is the fact that they and their children are shunned from society, and even from their families.  They are most often forced into begging as they are rejected from work and from all other agencies that might help them.  I highly encourage you to take a look at what they do, if only to feel good that someone has taken the initiative to help these most desperate of God's children.  Check it out at risingstaroutreach.org.

And I'm not a fan of David Archuleta, but I applaud any star who attaches their name to something beneficial.  Pause the music below and enjoy the video.

8th Day of Thanks&Giving - Modern Conveniences

I have been reading my grandma and great-grandma's journals and I recently read a book that was set in 1906, and it got me thinking about all the things that make my life SO much easier. Honestly, how did they survive? . . . computers, phones, Internet (how else would I be able to tell you all the details of my life?), stove/oven, washer & dryer, microwave, refridgerator, disposable diapers, vacuum, dishwasher, power tools, digital cameras, video camera, printer, copy machines (I actually have an old activity book that says "get a blank paper and trace this picture" - can you imagine?), flushing toilets, furnace, fast food, mass transit, airplanes!, batteries, electricity, and on and on. There are so many things that my great-grandma, who is 100 yrs old, didn't have growing up or when she was raising her children. Although it could be argued that some of these things have bogged us down, made us lose touch with our families, or made us not rely on each other like we should, I am still EXTREMELY grateful for how they have improved my life.

I did a post already this year where I highlighted the work that HELP International does in building adobe stoves in less developed countries (click here), you should read this to understand some of the reasons why this is SO needed. Can you imagine having to cook ALL of your meals over an open fire - inside a hut, while caring for your children? That also means that you or your kids must collect wood, or some other type of fuel, and cut it EVERYDAY. I think of all the development projects I have done, this is definitely one of my favorites. Mostly because it has the most immediate short-term and long term effects on so many different areas. It improves health, saves money and time, and it is so cheap and simple!

There are many, many other organizations building all different versions of these "fuel efficient stoves" throughout the world. This is because the same thing is seen in impoverished countries around the globe - poor health from smoke inhalation, burn accidents, malnutrition, deforestation; the list goes on and on. To help you understand, here is a story from one such organization called Mercy Corps:

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (Congo, for short) has suffered from years of conflict. A recent escalation left hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs) living in large, barely habitable, camps. In the three territories where Mercy Corps operates — Goma, Rutshuru and Masisi — there were more than 850,000 displaced people living in thirteen sprawling IDP camps by the end of 2008. These camps were all located on the border of Virunga National Park, one the most threatened World Heritage Sites in the world. Not only is the park a bio-diversity hotspot but it is home to the last vestiges of the mountain gorilla. The Park was already under severe pressure from local population growth before the IDPs arrived.

When displaced families use traditional food preparation techniques, which typically consist of an open cooking fire, the daily firewood needs for each IDP household amounts to seven kilograms of wood per day. For the total displaced population in the area, this translated to a total daily need of over 900 tons of wood every day.

The fuel needs for these cooking fires was not only causing severe deforestation in the National Park but the collection of fuel wood in unstable areas was placing women at risk of rape and murder by some of the remaining rebel soldiers.

Thanks to funding received for this project, Mercy Corps has been able to construct 20,000 fuel efficient stoves for IDP families. The introduction of these stoves, together with training in improved food preparation techniques, has had a dramatic effect. Not only has firewood consumption been reduced by around 50 percent, but the use of the stoves has improved the security and health of women and their children. It has also reduced CO2 emissions by an estimated 24,000 tons to date.

Some of the IDPs are now beginning to return home. Many are intending to construct fuel efficient stoves in their home villages and Mercy Corps will be providing ongoing support in this transitional period.

Check out these other links if you are interested in learning more:
Darfur Cookstoves
CHF International
Stove Team International
Escorts Foundation
Lorena Stove powerpoint - this is a really good informative description of how this type works and why they are important

7th Day of Thanks&Giving - Friends

What I've Learned from My Girlfriends
Author Unknown

Good times are even better when they're shared.
A good, long talk can cure anything.
Listening is just as important as talking.
Everyone needs someone with whom to share their secrets.
Laughter makes the world a happier place.
Sometimes you just need a shoulder to cry on.
Great minds think alike.
You are NEVER to old for slumber parties!
Girls just want to have fun!
It's important to make time to do "girl things".
An understanding friend is better than a therapist, and cheaper too!
Gems may be precious, but friendship is priceless!

"A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words." -Author Unknown

I am so grateful for all of my friends and all the different roles they play in helping me through this thing called life. I always get these cheesy chain-emails about friends and sometimes I just delete them, but sometimes they hit the nail on the head, because friends do make life sweeter, the hard times more bearable and fill in the voids that we all experience at some point or another. So THANK YOU to all of my friends - for your support, your honesty, your compliments, your advice, your laughter, your listening ear, your patience, your service, your acceptance and your love.

The idea of "friends" is a universal concept. Women all over the world have and need these relationships. In certain settings it has become, literally, life-saving. There is a method of poverty alleviation, called microcredit, that has taken hold in developing countries that allows the very, very poor to borrow money through a system based on solidarity lending. Most of the recipients of microcredit are women living on less than a dollar a day, and because they lack collateral, steady employment or any sort of credit history, they generally cannot get a loan from a traditional bank. Microcredit is one of the few things that has revolutionized they way we help the poor and changed millions of lives. Money is given to and managed by "village banks" or "solidarity groups" and they are responsible to each other for repayment. All the women in the group become the "collateral" for each individual who has recieved a loan - if she can't repay it or can't make her payment that month, it is covered by the group.
It is obviously much more complicated than I can describe here, but it has revolutionized they way we are fighting poverty around the world. The founder of Grameen bank and the genius behind this concept, Muhammad Yunus, recently won a Nobel Peace Prize for his decades of work. Now there are hundreds of organizations that are involved in microcredit, microfinance, microlending, microentrepreneurship, etc - and they are doing AMAZING things. They are changing lives and breaking the cycle of generations of poverty and hopelessness.

Pause the music a minute and see for yourself how this can empower people.

Look at the pride in their eyes and the happiness in each of their faces!

4th Day of Thanks&Giving - Employment

Although at times we are cashing in our penny jar and I feel like we are scraping to get by, I am very grateful that in these economically tough times we have a job at all. By "we", "of course, I mean my husband. And although he doesn't like being gone as much as he is, I am thankful for both of his jobs. I am thankful that he likes, and sometimes loves, his job. I am thankful that he is able to work and provide for our family. I am thankful for the second family we have there. We are so blessed!

When I say "scraping by", we all know that I am not out in the trees trying to collect food for my kids, but unfortunately, there are many people around the world for whom that is a reality. I am grateful for all the organizations out there that are working to help others provide for their own well-being. The following story is from Heifer International (they do amazing things!):

For decades, the Akha tribes of northern Thailand relied on one method of survival: Constant migration throughout the region necessitated by the slash-and-burn technique of farming. Then everything changed.

New government policies included tribe members' forced settlement. It didn't take long for them to find that the only farming method they'd known quickly depleted what little land they had. The notorious dry season only made things worse, and soon the youth of the villages were leaving home to find work that too often involved prostitution and lead to drug addiction. Meanwhile, those left behind still had to eat.

Mrs. Nakha remembers that their food and income "…came only from what we found in the forest." And although it was illegal, "We were forced to collect charcoal [for cooking] in the middle of the night. We didn't even use a flashlight to guide us, only lighted matches, so that we wouldn't get caught." During the daylight hours, "We were idle and isolated ourselves from each other." Forming a village community seemed impossible.

In 1999, Heifer International's Thailand program began working with these families, teaching them how to plant kitchen gardens and care for the water buffalo, cattle, pigs and poultry Heifer provided. The villagers learned how to use biogas for their fuel. Ten neighboring villages even banded together to plant almost 50,000 trees in a one-hundred hectare area where water springs are located. Now, this new forest absorbs rain water and supplies it to the villages during the dry season.

"Today we can establish ourselves as a community," said Amui Wazu. "And Heifer has introduced us to the kitchen gardens, which have been our savior. We have vegetables year-round!" "Since Heifer International [came], we are always busy with our animals and our kitchen gardens," Mrs. Nakha added. "We do not need to go elsewhere for our food, because everything for our survival is here."

To read more Heifer success stories, click here.

3rd Day of Thanks&Giving - Education

I had one goal before I had children - to finish my bachelors degree. Whether it was fate or perfect planning on my part, I brought my oldest son, Corbin, home from the hospital the same day I received my diploma from Brigham Young University. As I had planned since the age of 14, I studied International Relations and was well on my way to saving the world. My education has not only given me a broader perspective of the world, but it has given me oppportunities to serve and grow in ways I never would have imagined. It has allowed me to travel and teach and share with others my passion for community development and poverty alleviation. It has made me a better mother and a more productive member of society. I am so thankful for education I have recieved and am so grateful that my sons will have many of those same opportunities. I hope we do not take for granted all the knowledge that is available to us.

All around the world, there are millions of children who do not have the opportunity for an education. Many do not even have a place to call home. In El Salvador, I had the chance to work at a home for street boys. I could not believe how young some of them were - and before coming to this home, they were expected to provide for and take care of themselves, literally on the streets of a large city. Many of them had been abused and that is why they chose to live this way instead of going home. Most of them had been involved with crime, drugs, violence, street gangs, or all of the above. This home helped integrate them back into society by putting them back in school, giving them vocational training, and most importantly, giving them the emotional support and confidence they needed to progress with their lives. I am so grateful to those who help make this happen and who see more in these boys than the menacing label society would put on them.

In Uganda, there is a similar organization. Though new and fairly small, they are having a profound effect on children that others have forgotten about. They are The Youth Outreach Mission. It is run by a few young men, who after completely their university studies, have decided to return home and do all they can to help the less fortunate in their communities. Volunteers of HELP International have had the opportunity to work with them for a couple years now and have had tremendous experiences. I mentioned them previously here, but that was just one small part of what they do. To see more, check out their blog here, and just remember that it is amazing that they even have an internet presence. This is true grassroots efforts making a real difference in the lives of Ugandan street children. These guys are amazing - so motivated and dedicated. They are very inspiring!

Highlights of 2008 - Conference with Yunus

One of the highlights of my year was getting to attend the Social Business and Microeconomic Opportunities for Youth Conference in Denver in March. It was great for so many reasons. I got to go on a short trip without my kids, fly and hang with two of my good friends, stay in my Dad's hotel, see my brother Matt from Chicago, be there for my Dad's 50th birthday celebration and of course, the conference was awesome. The keynote speaker was Muhammed Yunus who recently won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in creating micro loans for the poor. He started in Bangladesh, where he is from, over 25 years ago and it has now become a worldwide movement with thousands of organizations providing microcredit and microbusiness training to the poorest of the poor (mostly people living on less than a dollar or two a day). I am so glad that he won this award, although he has revolutionized international development, he is such a humble and kind person - he deserves every bit of recognition! I enjoyed hearing him speak and the many others at the conference that really inspired me to continue on my path of finding ways to contribute to alleviating poverty around the world. (And yes, I was very pregnant in these pictures, ugh.)

I was privileged to get to have breakfast with Yunus one morning (me and 300 others). :)

Yunus, Me, and my friends, Jen Boehme Kumar and Genevieve Brown