Tag Archive for 'Poverty'

Going Deeper: Reflections on The Village Project, Oaxaca, Mexico, Summer 2011 by Peter Allen

mathew published on September 4, 2011 in build, celebrity, food, superforest journal and zeitgeist. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

As some of you might know I spent the summer working for an organisation called Simply Smiles. I have yet to write my own overview of my summer there, but I thought I would extend this piece, written by my coworker and boss, to all of you. So here it is, please enjoy!

Not long ago, the Founder and President of Simply Smiles, Bryan Nurnberger, posted a moving account of his summer on the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Reservation. In it, he discussed the challenges of developing trusting relationships and effective programs in the absence of cohesive community. The heart of his conclusion was vintage Bryan: We will continue to work with our new friends on the Reservation despite the persistence of suspicion and a sometimes terrifying lack of hope. “The need trumps the obstacles,” as he says. My experiences as the Simply Smiles team leader in Mexico this summer were in many ways opposite from Bryan’s, but as with the Reservation, the importance of communityemerged as the dominant theme of our eight weeks in Oaxaca.

Our work with marginalized communities in southern Mexico certainly involves improving the lives of our friends there physically. We bring food to those suffering from malnutrition and to those at risk of starvation. We rebuild and repair schools. In the past, we’ve built houses and transformed a children’s home.

However, beneath and within all this practical help is an essential reality: trusting relationships and compassionate connections. This summer, in addition to refining and improving upon last year’s program, we did our best to deepen and strengthen the friendships that Bryan and many others developed in 2009 and 2010. This meant not just buying groceries but working side by side with the women of Santa Maria Tepexipana (including Lula, Christobalina, Matea, Angelina and others) as they prepared the weekly community meals. It meant holding Movie Night every Thursday and inviting not just children but people of all ages. It meant stopping into people’s homes to chat as we walked by on our way to the storage shed. It meant welcoming children into our campsite and playing cards and laughing for hours.

Those who expressed gratitude to us consistently emphasized their appreciation of ourfriendship over our material help. Personally, I believe this is because friendship is something that they can and do give to us as much as we give it to them. In any situation where the “haves” are giving to the “have nots,” there is a fundamental and uncomfortable lack of parity. But friendship levels the field. For this reason, we went deeper into this jungle this summer, holding a community meal in the mountaintop village of La Cienega, walking an hour-plus uphill in order to send a signal to them and to others: We will make the effort to come to you. We want to know where you live and to share life with you.

Each of our staff members and interns also recognizes that we could have done nothing of substance in Oaxaca City and in the jungle without the help of the local residents. Carol and Francisco welcomed us to Casa Hogar each Sunday afternoon. At the dump, Edith, Luciano, and Soledad allowed us into their homes, took us on tours, and embraced us with brilliant smiles. Each community meal in Santa Maria required at least 10 hours of preparation and hundreds of fresh tortillas. We needed a local mason (Javier) to help us make improvements to village schools. Even the people at the places we stopped on our long drive to the jungle each week became our good friends. They opened their hearts and homes to us and we know that we can rely on them in an emergency.

Yes, the food is making a difference in the jungle. The people who attend our community meals and come to our food distributions are unmistakably healthier. That is something to celebrate! And the unexpected feedback we received from some of the adults and older children – that the people of Santa Maria are closer to one another and treat their children better since we’ve come into their lives — is extremely gratifying.

However, all is not wonderful. Social injustices abound. Crimes go unpunished. Our friends at the dump still live and work in an alarmingly unsafe environment. The people in the Santa Maria region still lack anything close to decent health care (Can you imagine being a parent and not having a place to bring your sick child?). The political and economic decks remain stacked against the coffee farmers and their families and workers.

Simply Smiles has plans to help our friends address these issues, but we need your active support. Will you help us by coming to Oaxaca in 2012 and, if you feel moved to do so, by making a donation or becoming an I’m Dedicated donor? Please contact Bryan or me or visit our website if you want to be a part of this amazing life we are living – a life of deepening connections and emerging hope.

Thank you so much to our staff, interns, volunteers, and donors for creating thousands of smiles and for making Summer 2011 a success!

Living On One Dollar-A-Day: An Inspiring Journey

mathew published on September 7, 2010 in celebrity, superforest journal and zeitgeist. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

“2.7 billion people live on under two dollars a day, 1.1 billion of whom live on less than one dollar a day. It is easy to assume that such poverty consists of a hand-to-mouth existence where people scrape together a dollar each day to be spent in its entirety, only to start the cycle again the next day.”

Hello SuperForest!

Today I am going to share with you a story that was brought to my attention recently. It has all the parts of a good story: a group of friends, an adventure, a goal, many challenges, and a dream that spurs them on.

Zach, Chris, Sean, and Ryan are four college students who want to make a difference. How? By sharing an experience that many in the world, unfortunately, experience as well, poverty. They remind us that so many people (that 1.1 billion mentioned above) live on less than one dollar a day, and that number is just an average. Some days there is no money, some days might feel like what Christmas feels to us. So, they decided to set out to Guatemala to live life as closely as possible as the local subsistence farmers in rural villages. Their final goal: create a documentary that, in their words,

will follow the development of 6-8 families/entrepreneurs in the town of Peña Blanca as they face the complexity of the financial reality that confronts them, using Portfolio’s of the Poor financial diaries as a model. While not compromising the integrity of our documentary, we also want to create a compelling story to which people living outside of poverty can relate.

They started by taking out a $300 micro-loan to pay for their nine week journey. A large part of their mission to study and try to understand the way of life for people who seemingly live on so little, at least monetarily. They used the aforementioned Portfolio’s of the Poor to support their ideas, using the book’s conclusions:

1. Money management is a crucial part of everyday life.

2. Poor households are plagued by the poor quality and low reliability of financial services.

The believe that one of the most important things to teach the modern western world is to understand the reality of poverty. How else can we begin to make an impact? They hope that their documentary will affect their fellow university students, “who have the potential to create the innovative solutions needed to combat world poverty.” Here is a quick introductory video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBv182TVWRU&feature=player_embedded

These four college students are doing something that I think, personally, is phenomenal: they are educating AND learning. So many organisations will set out to help our brothers and sisters who are less fortunate, but do it through monetary means only. By this I mean we donate some cash, and that organisation buys supplies and food, and then gives it out to those in need. Don’t get me wrong this is awesome, but is it enough? I don’t think so. I fear it is that good old western mentality of saying, “Well we did help them….” These four guys are doing something very different, something that I get very excited about. They are reaching out to people in need as people. They are not looking for a short term fix, but instead they are searching something more concrete, something more exciting. They are looking to learn how those in poverty discover and learn ways to manage their funds, studying “how the Grameen Bank, the world pioneer of microfinance, operates, including both challenges and benefits,” operates, giving valuable insight to how those in poverty strive to raise themselves out of their situation.. As they say themselves:

While it is true that the majority of income is spent on basics, especially food, the poor still have to budget their money to save for emergencies and large investments such as building a house, weddings for their children, and retirement.

They are going to learn about those in need, and then teach others that we, as they represent westerners, actually care on a personal level. As valuable as a food or supply drop can be to those who need it most, no matter how much they appreciate our western gifts, there is nothing equal to sharing a experience with another human being. To quite literally step into their shoes. That creates a great appreciation, a friendship, and an understanding. All of those things are invaluable, and are exactly what will change this world. I sincerely hope you go check their website after reading this to learn more. All four of them each have an individual blog, as well as one video blog. They are also looking to raise $100,000 for Fonkoze and Grameen Guatemala, Whole Planet Foundation’s microfinace partners in Haiti and Guatemala. Both are the largest micro-finance institutions in Haiti and Guatemala and they target the poorest of the poor.

All four are now back in the U.S. after their two month journey, so you can read up on all of their adventures and lessons learned right now! They are currently working on putting together their documentary.

I want to share one of their video blog entries with you that truly show you all that I have tried to express in words. There is also a whole environmental side to all of this that I could get into, but I will save it for some other time. In the mean time be amazed, and then go check out their site.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6n8bFyiOEac

So now please click

HERE!

Thank you SuperForest! Have a wonderful day.

Love,

Mathew

Meet Dollar A Week

april published on December 3, 2008 in zeitgeist. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Hello SuperForest folk!

Recently, a friend of mine teamed up with five of her friends to establish a new initiative called Dollar A Week. I’m not sure what the response has been just yet, though I’m excited to help them spread the word and let it trickle as far and wide as possible. Here’s the lowdown:

“In early 2007, a group of friends sitting around in Sydney, Australia, decided that enough was enough. Tired of looking at a world caving in under the weight of poverty, hunger and disease, this group of six or so ‘no-one specials’ awoke to the idea that they, just as they were, could make a difference…

Everyone had a dollar in their pocket that day. And, unsurprisingly, each of them agreed that they wouldn’t really notice if that dollar went missing. In fact, they were willing to give it away. And another one, next week. And another one, after that. If only there was a way for that dollar to get to those who needed it most…

Enter: Dollar A Week.

Dollar A Week is a not-for-profit organisation that raises funds to provide financial support to various community projects and charities which are working to release people from poverty, hunger and disease all around the world.”

The idea is so simple, which is why I think it will take off. It illustrates that when enough people get on board, small change can make a big difference.

One Voice

jordan published on October 15, 2008 in Uncategorized. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , .

If you don’t yet know, today is Blog Action Day’s 2008 campaign to raise awareness about, and inspire action towards helping solve POVERTY.  It’s an impressive international initiative with over 11,500 websites and writers participating worldwide, all focused on one collective theme.

  
Thinking about what I might contribute as I browsed the hundreds of posts on blogactionday.org, I found myself feeling, well… slightly overwhelmed.  It’s the same feeling I had when, as an aspiring writer, I signed up to work in a library.  Nothing is more humbling and daunting than placing your own small voice next to rows upon rows of the masters who have come before.
Pushing my cart through fields of books stacked ceiling high, I would find myself wondering what did I have to offer? What difference in the history of the world could my little voice make?
I never found an answer to that question. I still haven’t… and I’m writing every day.  Because what I did find was the answer to a more important question: 
Not what difference can my one voice make in the world if I express it, but what difference can it make if I don’t?
Poverty is a huge issue.  A global issue.  And we can choose to be overwhelmed by it, or we can choose to help.   To do something.  Raise our voices.  Act!   It’s so easy and it’s the hardest thing.
Because how many of us ever really give ourselves to a cause?  How many people commit their lives to an idea or ideal?  How much difference do we make in the world, each and every day?
One voice matters.  Your voice matters.  Do more.  
Not sure how?  Read here Peter Singer’s famous call to charity: “The Singer Solution”.
Or this list of 88 ways to end poverty now.  Read it, pick one, do it today!
With love,
-Jordan and Team SuperForest

In My Name

carla published on October 15, 2008 in Uncategorized. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , .

Throughout history, millions of people have stood up in the fight against global poverty.

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama

“The problems we face today, violent conflicts, destruction of nature, poverty, hunger and so on, are human-created problems which can be resolved through human effort, understanding and the development of a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood. We need to cultivate a universal responsibility for one another and the planet we share.”

Nelson Mandela

“Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life . . . “

Barack Obama

“If poverty is a disease that infects the entire community in the form of unemployment and violence, failing schools and broken homes, then we can’t just treat those symptoms in isolation . We have to heal that entire community.”

Now it’s our turn to take action. In the year 2000, government officials from around the world gathered together to form an 8 point strategy to end global poverty and promised to achieve most of these goals by 2015. In My Name is a website launched only a few weeks ago in partnership with YouTube as an effort to both raise awareness on the issue and to encourage each of us to take action by doing anything from spreading that awareness to making sure our government officials do their part in keeping that promise of ending global poverty.

We can be the generation that ends poverty. We can make a difference.

Search the Web Make Some Waves

taylor published on October 15, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .


Ripple.

A simple and effective search engine uses the fundamental portal to the information super-dooper-high-sky-way as its tool against poverty. Every time YOU use the RIPPLE search engine or click on selected buttons to Give Access to Clean Water, Feed a Village, Educate, or Microfinance the money generated by the ads you see go towards these causes. They are harnessing the power of OUR wonderful intraweb-internet-organic-community-robot-animal to end poverty. One Search at a time. So get your search and learn on and makes some big kahuna waves.

Love,
TV