Thursday, October 15, 2009

Yes We STILL Can, Magic Money, Do Amizade, The Challenge of Development, Great Job!



In this post:

  1. The Contest Has Become an Even Better Opportunity; Yes You can STILL Make a Difference with Just a Click! 
  2. Leveraging your philanthropy – Opportunity for 50% matching on October 28th
  3. 2010 Service-Learning Courses are Online with Applications Available and 2010 Volunteer Program Opportunities are Coming this Week Too
  4. The Challenge of Development and hints at site updates from Bolivia, Germany and Poland
  5. Great Job Amizade Pittsburgh Staff and Carlow University Volunteers – Painting a World Map at Pittsburgh Public Schools’ International Magnet School!  



The Contest that has become an Even Better Opportunity: Yes You can Still Make a Difference

Many thanks to all the Amizade Friends and Followers who voted to support our water harvesting project in Karagwe District, Tanzania. The contest was a wild ride, and the conclusion looked momentarily like the melee surrounding the 2000 Presidential Election! But this one’s not going to the Supreme Court; in fact we’ve been handed a much better option. And those of you who emailed us in frustration right after noon today (asking if you could still vote) – we’ve got great news for you.

If you were following closely you know – last night we had 3rd place, this morning we were in 5th, through the day more than a hundred of you voted, we jumped to third, and at noon, we had fallen to 4th by only 5 votes. The good news is that the organization that promoted this contest, Africa Rural Connect, has decided to offer one more round. The deadline for voting for this final round is November 15th. The really good news is that we’re currently in first place for the final round. And the even better news is this gives us time to email friends and family; it gives us time to email people we know want to change the world for the better but don’t know how or feel like they don’t have time. We can let them know all they have to do is register and endorse the project here:  http://arc.peacecorpsconnect.org/view/965/rainwater-harvesting-in-rural-tanzania.



Above, a group of Amizade students interviewing a family that received a water tank this past summer (and here the same group is later getting briefed at the US Embassy in Dar Es Salaam). 



And finally, the best news of all, if we get the first place, $3,000 prize, in this final round instead of the $1,000 3rd place prize we were chasing, we’ll be able to work with seven (instead of just 2) families to install water harvesting systems. We’ll therefore be able to help at least 70 (instead of 20) people get access to water. What that does for people in real terms is challenging to understand without the experience of watching young children and women wake every day to walk miles for water. It’s hard to understand without watching children, working hard at school all day, take their lunch breaks to walk in their school uniforms to distant water sources, instead of eating lunch. What I hope to communicate is that these water systems, which the families support by providing some of the locally available materials, are absolutely liberating.


This is the kind of water source many children and women are forced to utilize before having water harvesting systems. 


Water systems free women and children from daily water gathering duties and provide opportunities to go to school and to work. It is a simple solution, it is locally supported, it is empowering, and we have had clear successes with the systems we have installed over the past two years. When we visit families that have received systems, they are literally overcome with thankfulness. It is a priceless gift – and you can enable it. Here’s a little note one of my board members put together for his network. Feel free to cut and paste it to go to your friends and family:

Friends,


If you get a chance to go online tonight I have a quick way you can support a great cause at no cost to you.


2.     sign up  
3.     click “Endorse it” for the Tanzania Water harvesting program. 


It will take 60 seconds. 


They are a few votes away from winning a grant to deliver a clean water harvesting system to some folks in rural Tanzania.  This is a non-profit I’ve been involved with for the past half-decade that does great work. 


Please forward this to any and everyone. 


Thanks!!

Please be sure every good and kind person you know – votes for this. Thank you.


Students, a Tanzanian Family and WOMEDA Director Juma Massisi in front of a new water tank 


Leveraging Your Philanthropy – We can Beat the Market

Yes, you’ve asked, and it’s true. On October 28th, thanks to the Pittsburgh Foundation, we can make $50 turn into $75. We can make $2,500 turn into $3,750, and all of the parallel options in between. The Pittsburgh Foundation is matching gifts on the morning of October 28th beginning promptly at 10 am. To have your gift matched at 50 cents to the dollar, simply create a Login at The Pittsburgh Foundation website and return to the website promptly at 10am on October 28th. Matching funds are limited, so please be certain to return precisely at 10 am.    

2010 Service-Learning Courses and Volunteer Programs

Amizade makes a difference through a unique model of development: we promote community-driven service across cultures. All of our efforts are enacted by community leaders and volunteers working in cooperation with volunteers and students who are visiting the community to serve, to learn about local perspectives and experience, and to connect and form friendships across cultures. The 2010 Service-Learning Course opportunities are all online and the semester programs are featured in this volunteer-produced (Thanks, Brother Dave) video:





The Challenge of Development, Site Updates from Bolivia, Brazil, Germany and Poland

In supporting community-driven development, Amizade wants to support those initiatives that are empowering, enabling, and locally-supported. That is definitely what we have in the Tanzania Water Harvesting Initiative.

Sometimes, however unfortunately, our community partners have moments when they lack fundamental basic resources. Sometimes we are asked to step in to fill gaps. The orphanage we partner with in Bolivia, Millennium Cradle House, has been hit with some unequivocally hard times. I know several people are interested in helping Millennium in particular. If you want to help the children at Millennium Cradle House, you can also give on the matching day mentioned above and indicate that you’d like your donation to go to Millennium. I’ll write more about that soon.

Another site update is coming soon from our Holocaust Remembrance, Historical Landscape Preservation, and Anti-Genocide Awareness efforts in Germany and Poland. And a lot is happening (medical volunteering, environmental initiatives, more!) at the site where we were originally founded in Santarem, Brazil.


Great Job Pittsburgh Staff and Carlow University Volunteers, Painting a World Map at Pittsburgh Public Schools' International Magnet School!



Yes! As reported by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Amizade Pittsburgh Regional Outreach Coordinator Kat Stackel and other Amizade staff members (thanks too to Laura Hoch) recently worked with Carlow University students as part of Carlow University Service-Learning and Outreach Center's big 5th Annual Mercy Service Day. Great work to all involved!

And of course, great work to all who supported us in the Africa Rural Connect Contest and to all who continue to support us. We're building a better world together! 


Stay up to date and be part of continuing to make a difference by following this blog or by joining our facebook group!

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