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Rebuilding homes and hope in Haiti

This post is the second piece of a two-part series on the recent Carter Work Project and Habitat for Humanity’s work in Haiti. To read the first post “The Story of How 600 Volunteers Built 100 Homes in a Week” click here. 

In lieu of pictures, this video says it all. The commitment, the teamwork, the compassion and the hope that these volunteers have given to people who have lost it all.

Above: “Our Carter Work Project closing ceremonies video celebrates the impact of 100 new homes built in Haiti by more than 600 volunteers alongside families affected by the 2010 earthquake.”

Global Issues Global Non-Profit Organizations and Social Good Enterprises Humanitarian SOCIAL GOOD
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Why

224883_434246943296552_1798921956_nHow many times do I have to try to tell you
That I’m sorry for the things I’ve done
But when I start to try to tell you
That’s when you have to tell me
Hey, this kind of trouble’s only just begun
I tell myself too many times
Why don’t you ever learn to keep your big mouth shut
That’s why it hurts so bad to hear the words
That keep on falling from your mouth
Falling from your mouth
Falling from your mouth
Tell me

Why
Why
I may be mad
I may be blind
I may be viciously unkind
But I can still read what you’re thinking
And I’ve heard it said too many times
That you’d be better off
Besides

Why can’t you see this boat is sinking
Let’s go down to the water’s edge
And we can cast away those doubts
Some things are better left unsaid

But they still turn me inside out
Turning inside out turning inside out
Tell me
Why
Tell me
Why
This is the book I never read
These are the words I never said
This is the path I’ll never tread
These are the dreams I’ll dream instead
This is the joy that’s seldom spread
These are the tears

The tears we shed
This is the fear
This is the dread
These are the contents of my head
And these are the years that we have spent
And this is what they represent
And this is how I feel
Do you know how I feel?
‘Cause I don’t think you know how I feel
I don’t think you know what I feel
I don’t think you know what I feel
You don’t know what I feel

-Annie Lennox, lyrics “Why”

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Residents and members of the media at a vigil in Kauhajoki, Finland, one day after the September 23, 2008 shooting incident. Photo credit: Wikipedia Commons.

Why?

I am utterly heartbroken today by the tragedy that bestowed upon Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. What happened today is unimaginable. It is horrendous. Ugly. Cruel. And uncomprehensible.

As President Obama said holding back tears, there is “not a parent in America who doesn’t feel the overwhelming grief that I do.”

The fact that once again a young man opened fired on children in an elementary school is so sickening that I can hardly hold back my tears.

Can’t our children be safe anymore? Do they have to fear for their lives when they go to the one place they should be safe: School. The movies have already been ruined. The malls as well. Meanwhile schools continue to be hit by the unthinkable.

I don’t understand it.

Our world is becoming so insanely violent, and not only in America. Gratuitous violence is portrayed left and right in movies, on television and 24/7 on CNN. It is spread across the front pages of our newspapers on a daily basis and is found in children’s video games, books and toys. Our children are growing up in an everly increasing violent world, so violent that people are almost becoming immune to violence. It is disheartening and depressing.

You combine our violent world with the fact that in this county any kind of wacko can buy a semiautomatic gun off the internet without skipping a beat, makes my stomach lurch. Gun control is not the only answer but having some legislation in place to slow down the process would certainly help. Why on earth you can easily buy weapons meant to be used in warfare is sick. No one should be able to freely buy these kinds of killing machines.

I worry deeply about a growing problem of hatred and apathy among some young men. The last few mass shootings have all been performed by young, lost souls. The Connecticut school shooter was only 20 years old. The Oregon, shooter a mere 22 years old and described as “numb” before the attack.  The Colorado movie theater shooter who was only 25 and clearly a psychopath (how were the red flags in this case ignored?). The Virginia Tech shooter who took out dozens was a college student and then there is Colombine. Sadly, the list continues and never seems to stop. Why these young men kill innocent people and not just kill themselves makes absolutely no rational sense. To kill children, little ones, is even more sickening.

What bothers me immensely is that nothing seems to be getting done to change things and curtail the endless amounts of tragedies. Why aren’t we taking steps to tighten gun control? Why aren’t we putting more functioning systems in place to help deal with mental health issues? And why on earth do we live in a world that celebrates violence in almost everything we do? Why?

Of course I know these are complicated issues and aren’t easily solved. But we can certainly take some steps forward and stop ignoring the issues. It seems like each time a mass shooting happens, it creates a ripple effect on over to the “lunatics” out there who get an “ah ha” moment and copy it. Why not? In their sick heads where violence is glorified and gets plenty of attention (think CNN and Fox News, 24/7 coverage), it just feeds the frenzy.

My heart aches tonight for the parents who lost their young children. I walked into my children’s elementary school this afternoon to pick them up and had to hold back tears. My daughter, so sweet, so precious and innocent is in Kindergarten. Max is in second grade. Even the thought of something this atrocious happening in their school made my stomach ache and my eyes well up with tears. I don’t know how I could ever go on living.

Please say a prayer tonight for the 18 children and the adults who needlessly lost their lives. It is time we did something to end this world of violence. 

I’ll leave you with this one quote that I read and it broke my heart. All the kids wanted was to celebrate Christmas. They didn’t want to die.

First grade teacher Kaitlin Roig, 29, locked her 14 students in a class bathroom and listened to “tons of shooting” until police came to help.

“It was horrific,” Roig said. “I thought we were going to die.”

She said that the terrified kids were saying, “I just want Christmas…I don’t want to die. I just want to have Christmas.”

Global Issues Humanitarian SOCIAL GOOD
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“Save a Life this Christmas”: An alternative gift from Maternity Worldwide

“We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.” – Paulo Coelho

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Photo credit: Maternity Worldwide

The figures are startling. Every year around the world 287,000 women die in what should be the most joyous time of life: Having a baby. That means one woman dies every 2 minutes or 800 a day, during pregnancy and childbirth.

As a mother of two children who suffered two high-risk births, I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to be pregnant in a developing nation. It is not surprising that the majority of women (over 56% of the total) who die are in sub-Saharan Africa, a region of the world that is engulfed in extreme poverty. When you compare the mortality rates to women in the Western world, 99% of all deaths take place in the developing world.

In Ethiopia alone, one of the poorest countries in the world, 90% of women give birth at home and for every 100,000 women who give birth in the country, 676 women die from delivery and childbirth complications. Further accentuating the problem in the fact that Ethiopian women, who have little or no access to family planning or contraception, have on average 4.8 babies who survive. These numbers alone put women at high risk of dying and not living to see their babies grow up or raise the others.

Gifts that Give Back Global Health Global Issues Global Non-Profit Organizations and Social Good Enterprises SOCIAL GOOD
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“Power A Bright Future” for kids

Clorox may be mostly know for its fabulous bleach however I bet many people don’t know that this global company is also trying to brighten up the future of America’s children through Clorox’s Power A Bright Future K-12 school grant program.

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Lovely Bella Thorne, a teen celebrity and star of  Disney’s “Shake it Up” is working with Clorox to help spread the word and encourage votes from parents and teens in the Power A Bright Future program.  Bella is working closely with Clorox to make sure that K-12 schools can receive funds for programs that encourage students to be creative, active and tech and science savvy.

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Bella Thorne. Photo Credit: Cloxox Power Bright

That’s why for the program’s fourth year, Clorox will award seven grants totaling $200,000 to help fund new or existing school programs.

Global Non-Profit Organizations and Social Good Enterprises SOCIAL GOOD
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On the ground in Ethiopia

This week, Jennifer James, the founder of Global Team of 200, who I’m honored to write for, is on the ground in Ethiopia learning all about the issues Frontline Health Care Workers face in one of the poorest countries of the world. Jennifer is in Ethiopia along with three distinguished US nurses on behalf of Save the Children. Back in September, I had written a post about Save the Children’s campaign “Every Beat Matters” (to read post, click here). I was extremely touched by this campaign and what Save the Children is doing to help save lives. Jennifer published her first account of day one in Ethiopia today on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s blog “Impatient Optimists“. I asked Jennifer if I could share her story here as well and she was thrilled. 

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A woman has her child vaccinated by a Health Extension Work at the Germana Health Post in Ethiopia. Photo credit: Impatient Optimists

 

Global Non-Profit Organizations and Social Good Enterprises SOCIAL GOOD
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Helping Haiti: The story of how 600 volunteers built 100 homes in a week

I am honored to be writing a two part series on behalf of Habitat for Humanity. Recently 600 volunteers from around the world set off to Haiti as part of the Carter Work Project for the second year in a row with the goal of building 100 homes in a week. Here is their story. 

“Men anpil, chay pa lou.”

Many hands [make] the load lighter.

-Haitian proverb

In 1984, President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn created the Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project in response to the basic need of simple, decent and affordable shelter for people around the world. For 29 consecutive Mr. and Mrs. Carter have volunteered with Habitat for Humanity for one week building homes and hope in over 14 countries.  Past missions have brought people together to build homes as close as Mexico and Canada and as far away as South Africa and the Philippines. It has been an amazing feat and even more impressive given the fact that Carter and his wife Rosalynn, who are both in their mid-eighties, are right there with the volunteers on the ground, pouring in their heart, sweat and soul, in every project.

Global Issues Global Non-Profit Organizations and Social Good Enterprises Humanitarian SOCIAL GOOD
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Living in a Winter Wonderland

“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.” 
― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

Ok…I said I was done posting but what can I do? Nature has serendipitously dropped a brilliant white wet snowstorm on us and it is magical outside. After gearing up the kids and putting on my snowshoes, I headed to my lovely lake and snapped away. It was utterly breathtaking outside.

We spent the rest of the afternoon reliving my youth by sledding down our neighborhood hill and throwing snowballs. It was a delightful day!

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Minnesota TRAVEL BY REGION United States
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Gifts that give back: 1000 Shillings

This post is in response to the work I’m doing on behalf of Global Team of 200. 1000 Shillings has provided us with the content and images below that are used in this post. For more information on 1000 Shillings, please click here. 

Screen Shot 2012-12-07 at 2.25.22 PM1000 Shillings is a Uganda-based organization that helps impoverished mothers earn a living through their small business by selling limited-edition paper bead jewelry. The unique name for the company is quite symbolic as it is the amount of money that they average woman in the Namatala slum lives on per day – approximately 1,000 Ugandan Shillings ($.40).

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International Volunteer Day: December 5

“There is no better exercise for your heart than reaching down and helping to lift someone up”

– Bernard Meltzer

Today is International Volunteer Day. However, in my book every day should be a day to volunteer. I am a strong advocate for giving back and believe strongly that everyone who is able should help others in need.

Volunteering does not have to be complicated. In fact, there are little things you can do right in your own backyard to help make the world a better place. For instance, every community has a school which needs volunteers to help out. I volunteer often at my children’s school on fun events and also on day to day tasks such as helping kids learn to read, write and do arithmetic. With the graying population, there is also a lot of need assisting seniors either at care centers, hospitals or just in every day life. With the economy in decline, many people need help just trying to survive. There are many places you can volunteer to give back to the poor such as helping at a food shelf, a donation center or a job/skill retraining center. The list of opportunities to give back and volunteer are endless. All you need is a little bit of time.

“If you wait until you can do everything for everybody, instead of something for somebody, you’ll end up not doing nothing for nobody.” ~ Malcom Bane

For today’s post, I would like to showcase a few memories of my favorite volunteer experiences over the last few years. With my next volunteer trip approaching in exactly one month (I leave for Honduras on January 5th) I am looking forward to having another opportunity to give back and see the world through new eyes.

SOCIAL GOOD Volunteering Abroad
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United Way’s campaign to teach children about poverty: Pass the Grade game

This post is part of the Social Good Sunday series in which I highlight different organizations around the world making the world a better place. 

Poverty is a tough topic to comprehend. It is tragic, dark, unfair and cruel.  A way of life that doesn’t make sense in a world that has so much for some and so little for the rest. If poverty is hard to understand as an adult, imagine how confusing it is to understand such a difficult topic for children.

Many children in my community have everything they need and most likely too much. They generally have all the latest toys, more than enough food on their table, a home to live in and a family to love. However, once you step outside of Southwest Minneapolis, the picture is dramatically different. Children live in poverty, don’t always have enough to eat at night and struggle immensely in school. The inequities are surprising and often astounding.

According to numbers released in September by the U.S. Census, the percentage of children living in poverty in Minnesota continues to grow.

“Now 80,000 more children are living in poverty compared to 2000 (114,000), an increase of about 70 percent. Officially, an estimated 194,000 (15.4 percent) children were living in poverty in Minnesota in 2011, a trend that has continued to increase for more than 10 years. Compared to last year, the number increased only slightly by 2,000 children from 192,000 in 2010”.

I often find that our middle class children live in a bubble and grow up rarely being exposed to what the rest of the world lives like and even more so, what a large percentage of kids in their own city live like. In poverty. If it is hard for adults to understand poverty, it is  oftentimes even more challenging for children to understand the full impact of poverty on families and kids themselves.

In honor of the first ever Giving Tuesday, a new day to give back to the community that was launched on November 27th, The Greater Twin Cities United Way* launched a fun, educational online game cleverly called “Pass the Grade“. In “Pass the Grade”, players will experience four challenges that teach about the trials children in poverty have to overcome to succeed in school.  What is so impressive about Pass the Grade is that it accomplishes two important goals: First, it educates children about other kids living in poverty in a fun, engaging way. Second, it also raises money for educational programs with each game played.

Here are some details about the fundraising piece of the campaign (all information below provided by Greater Twin Cities United Way):

  • Campaign was launched on “Giving Tuesday”  – November 27, 2012 and runs through December 31 2012. 
  • Ecolab, Inc. is committing a total of $30,000 to the effort on two fronts: For each person who plays the game, found at www.uwpassthegrade.org, Ecolab Inc. will donate $1 to United Way’s Pass the Grade Campaign up to a maximum $10,000.  For each person who donates after playing the game, Ecolab will also contribute a dollar-for-dollar match, up to $20,000.

The goal of United Way’s Pass the Grade Campaign is to help 7,500 kids pass the grade in 2013. Here are some examples on how playing this game helps children living in poverty:

  • $5 provides a hungry child with snacks for a school week.
  • $22 will help one child receive one-on-one reading help.
  • $33 provides a child with enriching after-school programs.
  • 5,000 kids will get a healthy snack at school.
  • 1,500 kids will receive one-on-one tutoring and reading help.
  • 1,000 kids will take part in enriching after-school programs.

The game, developed by Space 150 and supported by U.S. Bank, takes players through four unique challenges that test if they have what it takes to pass the third grade. (Students who fall behind by third grade are four times more likely to drop out of high school.) After each challenge, statistics on childhood poverty are shared. Upon completion of the game, a grade is given to the player. Players are then asked to share their results via social media to encourage additional donations. 

“Tackling the challenge of poverty and making a difference in a child’s life can’t be done alone, it must be a community effort,” says Greater Twin Cities United Way Senior Vice President of Marketing Kathy Hollenhorst.  She continues, “In playing Pass the Grade, one learns about the impact of poverty on a child’s educational advancement, while at the same time learning about how to make a difference in the community.  With our regions’ philanthropic spirit, we at United Way believe that together we can help all children get the quality early education they need to succeed in school – and in life.”

Ok….now I’m going to ask everyone to play the game! I just played the game and I failed! I failed at passing but I sure learned a lot about kids living in my community in poverty. Here is what I learned.

About Greater Twin Cities United Way:

Greater Twin Cities United Way addresses our community’s most critical issues by focusing on three key areas: Basic Needs, Education and Health. We attack poverty on multiple, interconnected fronts to achieve lasting change – through 10 measurable goals – by collaborating with business, government and nonprofit organizations to create solutions and carry out our call to action to LIVE UNITED by encouraging everyone to Give. Advocate. Volunteer. United Way serves people living in or near poverty in nine counties: Anoka, Carver, Chisago, Dakota, Hennepin, Isanti, Ramsey, Scott and western Washington. Join the movement. LIVE UNITED.

For more information, visit www.unitedwaytwincities.org

Global Issues Global Non-Profit Organizations and Social Good Enterprises Poverty SOCIAL GOOD
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Giving Tuesday: Giving Back the Give

Today is the first ever Giving Tuesday, a day across the country dedicated to giving back. Launched by the creative minds of the UN Foundation, Unilever Corp. and United Way, what started simply as a great idea turned into a mass event involving over 4,000 organizations in all 50 states.

It is the hope that Giving Tuesday starts a new national day of giving via the collective power of charities, families, businesses and individuals who will transform how people think about, talk about and participate in the giving season.  Judging by the media, it is looking like the first Giving Tuesday will be a great success and only continue to grow in years to come.

Gifts that Give Back SOCIAL GOOD