10 Ways to Support Charity Through Social Media July 14, 2009

This post is a collaboration between Mashable’s Summer of Social Good charitable fundraiser and Max Gladwell’s “10 Ways” series. The post is being simultaneously published across more than 100 blogs.

Social media is about connecting people and providing the tools necessary to have a conversation. That global conversation is an extremely powerful platform for spreading information and awareness about social causes and issues. That’s one of the reasons charities can benefit so greatly from being active on social media channels. But you can also do a lot to help your favorite charity or causes you are passionate about through social media.

Below is a list of 10 ways you can use social media to show your support for issues that are important to you. If you can think of any other ways to help charities via social web tools, please add them in the comments. If you’d like to retweet this post or take the conversation to Twitter or FriendFeed, please use the hashtag #10Ways.

1. Write a Blog Post

Blogging is one of the easiest ways you can help a charity or cause you feel passionate about. Almost everyone has an outlet for blogging these days — whether that means a site running WordPress, an account at LiveJournal, or a blog on MySpace or Facebook. By writing about issues you’re passionate about, you’re helping to spread awareness among your social circle. Because your friends or readers already trust you, what you say is influential.

Recently, a group of green bloggers banded together to raise individual $1 donations from their readers. The beneficiaries included Sustainable Harvest, Kiva, Healthy Child, Healthy World, Environmental Working Group, and Water for People. The blog-driven campaign included voting to determine how the funds would be distributed between the charities. You can read about the results here.

You should also consider taking part in Blog Action Day, a once a year event in which thousands of blogs pledge to write at least one post about a specific social cause (last year it was fighting poverty). Blog Action Day will be on October 15 this year.

2. Share Stories with Friends

Another way to spread awareness among your social graph is to share links to blog posts and news articles via sites like Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, Digg, and even through email. Your network of friends is likely interested in what you have to say, so you have influence wherever you’ve gathered a social network.

You’ll be doing charities you support a great service when you share links to their campaigns, or to articles about causes you care about.

3. Follow Charities on Social Networks

In addition to sharing links to articles about issues you come across, you should also follow charities you support on the social networks where they are active. By increasing the size of their social graph, you’re increasing the size of their reach. When your charities tweet or post information about a campaign or a cause, statistics or a link to a good article, consider retweeting that post on Twitter, liking it on Facebook, or blogging about it.

Following charities on social media sites is a great way to keep in the loop and get updates, and it’s a great way to help the charity increase its reach by spreading information to your friends and followers.

You can follow the Summer of Social Good Charities:

Oxfam America (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, YouTube)
The Humane Society (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, Flickr)
LIVESTRONG (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr)
WWF (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr)

4. Support Causes on Awareness Hubs

Another way you can show your support for the charities you care about is to rally around them on awareness hubs like Change.org, Care2, or the Facebook Causes application. These are social networks or applications specifically built with non-profits in mind. They offer special tools and opportunities for charities to spread awareness of issues, take action, and raise money.

It’s important to follow and support organizations on these sites because they’re another point of access for you to gather information about a charity or cause, and because by supporting your charity you’ll be increasing their overall reach. The more people they have following them and receiving their updates, the greater the chance that information they put out will spread virally.

5. Find Volunteer Opportunities

Using social media online can help connect you with volunteer opportunities offline, and according to web analytics firm Compete, traffic to volunteering sites is actually up sharply in 2009. Two of the biggest sites for locating volunteer opportunities are VolunteerMatch, which has almost 60,000 opportunities listed, and Idealist.org, which also lists paying jobs in the non-profit sector, in addition to maintaining databases of both volunteer jobs and willing volunteers.

For those who are interested in helping out when volunteers are urgently needed in crisis situations, check out HelpInDisaster.org, a site which helps register and educate those who want to help during disasters so that local resources are not tied up directing the calls of eager volunteers. Teenagers, meanwhile, should check out DoSomething.org, a site targeted at young adults seeking volunteer opportunities in their communities.

6. Embed a Widget on Your Site

Many charities offer embeddable widgets or badges that you can use on your social networking profiles or blogs to show your support. These badges generally serve one of two purposes (or both). They raise awareness of an issue and offer up a link or links to additional information. And very often they are used to raise money.

Mashable’s Summer of Social Good campaign, for example, has a widget that does both. The embeddable widget, which was custom built using Sprout (the creators of ChipIn), can both collect funds and offer information about the four charities the campaign supports.

7. Organize a Tweetup

You can use online social media tools to organize offline events, which are a great way to gather together like-minded people to raise awareness, raise money, or just discuss an issue that’s important to you. Getting people together offline to learn about an important issue can really kick start the conversation and make supporting the cause seem more real.

Be sure to check out Mashable’s guide to organizing a tweetup to make sure yours goes off without a hitch, or check to see if there are any tweetups in your area to attend that are already organized.

8. Express Yourself Using Video

As mentioned, blog posts are great, but a picture really says a thousand words. The web has become a lot more visual in recent years and there are now a large number of social tools to help you express yourself using video. When you record a video plea or call to action about your issue or charity, you can make your message sound more authentic and real. You can use sites like 12seconds.tv, Vimeo, and YouTube to easily record and spread your video message.

Last week, the Summer of Social Good campaign encouraged people to use video to show support for charity. The #12forGood campaign challenged people to submit a 12 second video of themselves doing something for the Summer of Social Good. That could be anything, from singing a song to reciting a poem to just dancing around like a maniac — the idea was to use the power of video to spread awareness about the campaign and the charities it supports.

If you’re more into watching videos than recording them, Givzy.com enables you to raise funds for charities like Unicef and St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital by sharing viral videos by e-mail.

9. Sign or Start a Petition

There aren’t many more powerful ways to support a cause than to sign your name to a petition. Petitions spread awareness and, when successfully carried out, can demonstrate massive support for an issue. By making petitions viral, the social web has arguably made them even more powerful tools for social change. There are a large number of petition creation and hosting web sites out there. One of the biggest is The Petition Site, which is operated by the social awareness network Care2, or PetitionOnline.com, which has collected more than 79 million signatures over the years.

Petitions are extremely powerful, because they can strike a chord, spread virally, and serve as a visual demonstration of the support that an issue has gathered. Social media fans will want to check out a fairly new option for creating and spreading petitions: Twitition, an application that allows people to create, spread, and sign petitions via Twitter.

10. Organize an Online Event

Social media is a great way to organize offline, but you can also use online tools to organize effective online events. That can mean free form fund raising drives, like the Twitter-and-blog-powered campaign to raise money for a crisis center in Illinois last month that took in over $130,000 in just two weeks. Or it could mean an organized “tweet-a-thon” like the ones run by the 12for12k group, which aims to raise $12,000 each month for a different charity.

In March, 12for12k ran a 12-hour tweet-a-thon, in which any donation of at least $12 over a 12 hour period gained the person donating an entry into a drawing for prizes like an iPod Touch or a Nintendo Wii Fit. Last month, 12for12k took a different approach to an online event by holding a more ambitious 24-hour live video-a-thon, which included video interviews, music and sketch comedy performances, call-ins, and drawings for a large number of prizes given out to anyone who donated $12 or more.

Bonus: Think Outside the Box

Social media provides almost limitless opportunity for being creative. You can think outside the box to come up with all sorts of innovative ways to raise money or awareness for a charity or cause. When Drew Olanoff was diagnosed with cancer, for example, he created Blame Drew’s Cancer, a campaign that encourages people to blow off steam by blaming his cancer for bad things in their lives using the Twitter hashtag #BlameDrewsCancer. Over 16,000 things have been blamed on Drew’s cancer, and he intends to find sponsors to turn those tweets into donations to LIVESTRONG once he beats the disease.

Or check out Nathan Winters, who is biking across the United States and documenting the entire trip using social media tools, in order to raise money and awareness for The Nature Conservancy.

The number of innovative things you can do using social media to support a charity or spread information about an issue is nearly endless. Can you think of any others? Please share them in the comments.

Special thanks to VPS.net

A special thanks to VPS.net, who are donating $100 to the Summer of Social Good for every signup they receive this week.

Sign up at VPS.net and use the coupon code “SOSG”to receive 3 Months of FREE hosting on top of your purchased term. VPS.net honors a 30 day no questions asked money back guarantee so there’s no risk.

About the “10 Ways” Series

The “10 Ways” Series was originated by Max Gladwell. This is the second simultaneous blog post in the series. The first ran on more than 80 blogs, including Mashable. Among other things, it is a social media experiment and the exploration of a new content distribution model. You can follow Max Gladwell on Twitter.

This content was originally written by Mashable’s Josh Catone.

5 tips for Greener Meetings and Events July 1, 2009

By: Jeanne Dasaro, Plan-It Green Consulting and Events

Whether you are planning a birthday party or a large conference greening your next meeting isn’t as complicated or costly as you might think. Here are 5 simple and low cost changes that can have a big impact.

• Try going paperless: There are countless ways this can be done. Try distributing presentations on electronic devices (for example a flash-drive) or via an event web site versus printing manuals for each participant; Go for electronic registration and email correspondence; and advertise using the web and/or email as opposed to mailers.

• Go local: Make sure the menu has vegetarian meals and have the chef include local, seasonal produce.

• Recycle: Request that your meeting venue to provide recycling bins for paper, metal, plastic and glass. Recycle or reuse left over event materials.

• Print it Right: Work with an FSC certified printer; make sure materials are printed on recycled paper, using vegetable-based inks, and print on both sides of the paper.

• Forget the sugar packets: Request bulk dispensers for sugar, salt, pepper, cream and other condiments.

For more information visit www.planitgreenboston.com

Business Venture numero dos May 14, 2009

Today I launched the website for my second business venture, an event planning company.

Plan-It Green Consulting and Events is a Boston based meeting and event planning company that delivers environmentally friendly meetings to cause-focused organizations.  Check out the site here…  

Last weekend, on Mother’s Day, I completed my first event under the umbrella of Plan-It Green Consulting & Events, the ‘Make Way for Ducklings’ annual parade.  The event was sponsored by the Friends of the Public Garden & the Boston Athenaeum, which were the two groups I worked with. It was a great day and a great event. Be sure to read the article and check out more photos in the Boston Globe.

Globe Staff/Suzanne Kreiter

NPi Community Dialogue on Thursday May 7th at the BPL May 5, 2009

The New Prosperity Initiative Hosts Dialogue On Social Change

BOSTON, MA, MAY 5th, 2009 – The New Prosperity Initiative (NPi) will host a speakers panel and community dialogue on Thursday, May 7th, 2009. The purpose of the talk is to hear first-hand stories of community activism from local leaders and discuss innovative programs and projects happening in the greater Boston area. Please bring your questions as there will be time for group discussion. The event is free and open to the public and will take place in the Mezzanine Room at the Boston Public Library – Copley Square from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

May 7th’s speakers include: Hilary Allen, Community Engagement Manager at the Boston Center for Community & Justice; David Crowley, President and Founder of Social Capital Inc.; and Kaia Stern, Director of the Pathways Home Project at the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School.

About The New Prosperity Initiative: NPi is a Boston-based nonprofit organization that pairs storytelling with new media to publicize the efforts of people and organizations doing socially innovative work to end poverty and build prosperity. NPi stories take the shape of interviews, photo essays, videos, and pod-casts and will eventually be distributed in print and online at thenewprosperity.org. The purpose of NPi is to connect community leaders to one another and build a nation-wide network of ideas and solutions in order to bring the best models, strategies, and leadership qualities to the places that need them most. We also host community conversations which bring together local leaders to discuss lessons learned, current projects, and potential collaborations.

At the core of NPi are its two founders: Jeanne Dasaro and Alexis Schroeder.

Contact:
Alexis Schroeder Program Director
The New Prosperity Initiative (NPi)
“Building Prosperity By Connecting People”
207.590.8291

Abutu Maber? May 5, 2009

April 8th

I wish I could describe every sight, sound, and smell. Each is so different, but at the same time oddly familiar. The hustle and bustle of the main strip reminds me of NYC’s Chinatown with countless stalls, packed streets, and intriguing merchandise, but even that doesn’t fit the description I am looking for. The red soil, traffic exhaust, and indecipherable language are only a few of the traits that make Chinatown feel like McDonalds.

This morning when I arrive in the Acholi Quarter Karen, the PHH founder is in the midst of a quarterly “bead buy.”  Jewelry sales are the primary means of funding PHH programs. PHH members make pearl like beads out of paper, string the beads into jewelry, and sell the jewelry to make a living. Project Have Hope brings the jewelry back to the States where it’s sold. Each gorgeous piece of jewelry takes about 4-6 hours to complete and the women in line have baskets with hundreds of pieces. As I arrive there are close to 25 of the program’s 100 women waiting in line to have their jewelry inspected and purchased. More arrive as others finish and the entire process will take Karen about 7 hours to finish.

I watched the bead buy for about a 1/2 hour before I headed over to the home of my host, Santina.

PHH member

We are off to complete another 6 member profiles, which will bring us to 13, 6 short of our final total of 19, and after talking with some of the other volunteers on the trip, I learn that Santina and I ‘have a knack’ for the member profiles meaning we get good, in-depth information. Along with answers to the questions we take a portrait of each woman and a short video. Each woman’s story and circumstance is unique though the theme is unchanging, the war in the North lead to almost unmentionable horrors, lost family members, a long journey south, followed by difficult times. I am left speechless mainly from the fact that the global community has done little to stop these crimes against humanity.

After lunch I hopped on a boda-boda and after a 30 minute ride I arrived at Owino Market in downtown Kampala. All I can say is mayhem. The market is enormous and has everything from scrub brushes, to flat screen TV’s, to sneakers. I found another travelers video on YouTube, so I will let you watch as opposed to attempting to explain.

I purchased some fabric for myself, household items for Santina, and spend the rest of the time observing the happenings of the market. Though I think most people spent time observing me, since Muzungu’s are a rare sight. I hop back on a boda-boda with my purchases for another 30 minute ride back to the Red Chili.

a return to crafting May 4, 2009

With the newly acquired time entrepreneurship has granted me I have been able to rekindle beloved past-times like running, gardening, and crafting. These three activities were at one point part of my daily routine, but as my work responsibilities, business travel, & work commutes increased these leisure activities decreased to mere nostalgia. I am unsure how I began to trade recreation for success, but I suppose it was part of what I perceived as growing up. Regardless, nearly 8 years later, I am making a conscious attempt to return the activities that brought me so much joy for so long.

Craft, according to Webster’s, is to make or manufacture (an object, objects, product, etc.) with skill and careful attention to detail. It’s like Art’s not-so glamorous cousin, more practical and homemade looking. Etsy will give you a good idea of what I mean by craft, things like sewing, knitting, collage, bead work, quilting, etc.

This weekend I completed 2 of 3 projects I have in the cue, decorations for my garden and enhancing some old furniture in hopes of breathing life into my home office. I left the large collage for sometime in June.

 

painted rocks

Over the past few weeks I have been collecting large (softball to eggplant sized) rocks from around my neighborhood to use as a both a border around my garden and to hold down the chicken wire I plan to stretch from the deck to the ground.  (Gotta keep the rodents away from my tomatoes & carrots.) With enough rocks to surround the perimeter, I moved on to decorating by painting each rock with a series of designs. Quite cute if you ask me.

table before refinishing

 

table after refinishing

My second project, which has been on my list of to do’s for nearly 2 years, was updating some old furniture. I spent most of Sunday sanding and repainting a small table and bookshelf. I replaced the dark wood finish with a bright “Sea Creature” blue-green that manages to bring a little piece of the Caribbean to my home office.

 

 

All and all a productive few days!

self-employment & a guilty conscious. April 27, 2009

lately I’ve been wrestling with the difference in time obligations between self-employment and corporate employment. I knew pursuing the self-employment option would grant me more schedule freedoms, but I never realized to what extent. I was also unaware of the ‘guilt’ that accompanies all the free time.

Independent event planning allows me to make the same income as a 40 hour a week job, with about a 1/3 of the time commitment. This means I have more time to work on other projects (like NPI), socialize with people I used to ‘blow off’ due to a very busy schedule, and travel (hello Uganda). My current project is a parade and children’s event for a local Boston non-profit and this morning I woke up with a corporate workers mentality due to a pressing Tuesday afternoon deadline. Nervous that I had too much on my schedule and not enough time to finish it, I woke up today at 7 AM in order to get the tasks at hand completed. However it’s now 10:30 AM and all of the tasks are finished. Sitting at my desk (which happens to be outside on my back porch) still in my jammies, with my dogs at my feet, I wonder how is this possible?

At my previous job it would have taken me days to complete these 6 or so tasks and now only 3 hours later, I am “done with work for the day.” What I am realizing with my transition to self-employment is I spent a lot of time at my day job, acting busy. I attended meetings, organized files, made copies, etc, since I knew I had to be there from 8:30 AM to 5 PM daily. So, I stretched the work to make it last, because if I finished my weeks work before Friday at 5 PM, I couldn’t just leave. We were measured on inputs (which are fixed), not outputs (which are flexible). Now with self-employment, it’s 10:30 AM on Monday morning and I am free from income generating work again until May 7th, so now what? Well I will tell you what, a visit to Home Depot to get supplies for my garden, followed by trip to Harvard Square to interview a writer, and then take the dogs to the park when I return home. Sounds great right? Yes and No. I didn’t realize how much,  guilt, in the form of societal pressures  (aka a list of what I “should” be doing) would effect me. Some folks think you’re lazy, that you don’t actually work, or that you don’t get along with your supervisors, all of which are untrue. I work harder than when I was at my corporate job and in addition to working days you can now factor in nights, weekends, networking like a mad-woman, but the main difference is I no longer fill my schedule with idle work that keeps me busy til 5 PM. Instead I work feverishly from 7 AM to 10 AM and use the remaining time to do all the things my life has been lacking for too long. Don’t get me wrong this newly acquired free time does have it’s trade offs, like the lack of security that comes from a paycheck being deposited on the 15th and 30th of the month. However, I know that sooner or later, the guilt will subside, and my short term lifestyle sacrifices (ahem, nice dinner with friends) with be traded in for long term contentment, which make all the risk in the world, worth it. (and the haters, will really have stuff to ‘hate on’)

the weight of the world quickly replaces the airy feeling acquired after ditching some ‘fear of change’ induced anxieties April 22, 2009

April 7^th –

This morning I began to see Uganda. As I dismount the boda-boda and walk toward the PHH building Santina, my host, greets me. Using my freshly learned Acholi phrases I say good morning (Acho Maber) to which she asks, in English, how my ride was. Like a child I begin to tell her about each of the things I saw on the way, rows of shops offering everything from phone cards to rice to flip flops, the car wash that I believe might be an oversized puddle, women carrying yellow gerry cans of water on their heads, and a man lugging large strips of wood on his bicycle, Smiling she says, “yes, everyday life.”

As we walk, I realize my fears and anxieties are waning. The voice in my head that has been known to say, “the rest of the world is dangerous,” or “you shouldn’t blah, blah, blah” is starting to fade away. This morning I enjoyed my boda-boda ride (and I’m sure the driver enjoyed the fact I loosened my grip on his shoulder). I took in the sights, felt the wind on my face, actually looked around, and began to see someone else’s everyday life.

As Santina and I made a plan for collecting member profiles this morning, I couldn’t help but wonder how many times in the past my fears and anxieties kept me experiencing what life has to offer. I have made two international trips in the last two months and both managed to challenge my personal comfort levels. Somehow I keep finding myself alone, in the middle of a foreign country, in a drastically new circumstance, wondering “now what?” Each time the new situation nearly paralyzes me either into staying indoors or giving up completely, but something (like boredom) or someone (like random person on the street) gets me to “just try,’ and very quickly the feelings of apprehension are replaced with a sense of wonder. It’s at this moment that I laugh at myself saying, “that challenge of my comfort level wasn’t so bad after all.” Then I am grateful I didn’t give into my fear since that would have kept me from a memorable, perhaps once in a lifetime, experience. (I do however wish it was easier to sense the ‘grateful ending’ when you are standing there with a pit in your stomach contemplating what to do.) This realization leaves me feeling as though I’ve left behind about 40 pounds of baggage; I’ve been carrying around since childhood, so basically I feel like I am ready to take on the world. 

Santina and I complete 8 member profiles before lunch. The member profiles consist of 9 questions that help PHH learn more about each of its members. Questions about age, schooling, family makeup, PHH programs they participate in and benefit from, then the dozy of a question. What were some of the circumstances that brought you to the Acholi Quarter? Let me just say the stories I heard about the war in the North were equally horrific. Raided and burned villages, murdered family members, running from the rebels, walking miles on end, near starvation, taking in and supporting children of family members who have been killed, then finally settling in the Acholi Quarter where life is hard, opportunities are few, but no one has to fear for their lives. The story that will remain with me for ever is from a woman who watched the men from her village get lined up, beheaded, cut into small pieces, so they could be cooked, after which those who weren’t killed were made to eat the cooked remains of their families. Nothing about what brought the Acholi from their homes in the North, to an area outside Kampala is pleasant, though somehow they manage to be some of the most pleasant and joyful women I have met thus far in my life.

We take a break to meet the other volunteers for a group lunch. The lightness from this morning’s personal revelation is replaced by equal amounts of somberness and anger. Somberness since all the condolences in the world couldn’t make up for what these women have lost and experienced and anger from the realization that is this only a small drop in the bucket of world’s social injustices. I take a plate, to avoid offending anyone for not eating. I manage a few bites, but don’t have much of an appetite after all I learned this morning.  

100 handshakes and a host with the best hair April 21, 2009

I dismount the boda-boda in the Acholi Quarter after a near bike stalling hill climb happy to have both feet on solid ground. I attempt to take in the sights and sounds of my new environment, the children playing, the goats grazing, and a very large blue sky, before I am whisked away by a very loud and joyous welcoming committee. Sixty or so handshakes are followed by song and dance celebrating our safe arrival. At the same time we are introduced to our hosts for the week. Karen the Project Have Hope founder has paired each of the volunteers with a PHH member who will serve as our guide and translator for the week. This is about the time we realize my host, Santina, is not present. My initial thought is perhaps she doesn’t want to spend a week with Jean, aka the Muzungu woman with a man’s name (explanation to follow). This however is not the case and I have my first experience with how fast word in the Quarter travels. Within minutes we learn Santina is at the beauty salon, getting her hair done. A woman after my own heart, Santina arrives fashionably late and looking great. We hit it off immediately. The volunteer posse splits ways to tour the Quarter with our hosts.

 

Santina and I walk the Quarter for nearly an hour, up hill winding through narrow corridors, stepping over drainage ditches, down hill ducking under clotheslines.  I am introduced to another 60 or so people and feel as though I am running for office with all the smiles, laughs, waves, and handshakes. I soon find out, laughing is not a typical Acholi greeting and my laughing introductions are caused by the contrast between myself and ‘the other’ Jeanne-Marie known around the village, a Belgium man who recently visited.. Mid-handshake I am asked “but are you a man?” to which I say, “well, no I’m not, why?” which causes Santina to let out the first of many whole-hearted laughs. As we continue walking, heading towards the Stone Quarry and Santina explains Jeanne-Marie is a man’s name, which is why everyone laughed when they first met me. “It’s quite obvious you are not a man,” she says “And they do not understand why your mother would give you a man’s name.” I smile as I say, yes-good question.

We arrive at the Stone Quarry, which is how many people in the v

illage make a living. The work is beyond what I as an American know as labor intensive. The large pieces of stone are removed by men chipping away with only a sledge hammer, the stone is carried up the quarry walls by men and children, where it’s left in piles to be crushed into smaller pieces usually by women and children. I later find out while completing member profiles that working in the Stone Quarry is a hard life. The work is time and effort consuming and produces very little finished product, meaning it pays very little in comparison to other forms of livelihood in the area. People would prefer not to work in the Stone Quarry, but for many it’s their only employment option.

We end our tour at Santina’s home. Like most homes in the Acholi Quarter it’s a single room house with a dirt floor, a charcoal cooker, and 1 small window. A single sheet separates the front seating area from the sleeping quarters and it’s incredibly tidy. I meet her 3-year-old son Tiboni, who has been at home while we were on our tour. We begin to talk about family, which easily transitions, into completing my first PHH member profile.  I hear my first of many stories that differ in specific details, but have the same general theme. Santina migrated to the Acholi Quarter about 10 years ago. Originally from Sudan she left her home for Kitgum in Northern Uganda after her family was murdered and her village burned. After the rebels of the LRA arrived in Kitgum she along with her husband traveled about 300 miles south to the Acholi Quarter where they are remained for the past 10 years. The daily living here is difficult but they did not fear for their lives. She hopes to one day return to Sudan with her children. Upon arrival in the Acholi Quarter she worked in the Stone Quarry, but has transitioned to making paper bead jewelry for Project Have Hope. Assistance from PHH allowed her to attend tailoring school and with a recent microloan she has purchased a sewing machine. She is now able to sew items like school uniforms as yet another way of earning an income.  

Muzungu, how are you? April 20, 2009

I recently returned home from 10 days in Africa where I was working with Project Have Hope. The next few entries will be part travel journal and part reflection on my experiences. Please forgive the fact that they were not in real time, but if you have ever traveled in Africa you know about the unpredictability of things like access to the Internet.

 

April 5, 2009 – Arrival!

An exciting but exhausting day. It’s now past midnight in Uganda (about 5 PM or so in Boston) and I have been traveling for just over 20 hours. The longest travel day thus far in my life. After spending the past 4 years as a bi-weekly business traveler, I can say the entire trans-Atlantic adventure went perfectly. Each transfer from plane, to train, to automobile was flawless and on time, impressive, almost shocking.

Even with the near travel perfection, I do feel in a daze and disorientated. Everything is familiar, baggage claim, airport-hotel shuttle service, hotel check-in, but each is so different. The cars, the people, the roads, and the city lights look nothing like any American city. Besides that variation in what I am accustomed to, the air distracts me. It’s heavy from the humidity and it hits you the moment you step of the plane like steam when you remove the cover from a boiling pot of water. It’s thickness seems full of life, you can smell the vegetation and dust. The distinct aroma reminds you that you are somewhere else, and that’s before you factor in all the chirps, squeals, and buzzes that serve as it’s soundtrack.

As I sit beneath my mosquito net writing, I wish my fascination had been drawn more to practical logistics, like the exact location of the bathrooms as opposed to the sights and sounds of the night. The sheer volume of the animal noises outside has me nervous about crossing the courtyard to find the toilet, so I wait til day break.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

April 6, 2009 – Charapita and the chickens 

I woke up this AM to the sound of bubbling hens. Once the sun rose, I ventured out to find the bathrooms and discovered the chicken coop is located next to my room, which is why these chicks managed to wake me up. (This was also when I realized there was nothing to ‘fear’ in the courtyard outside my room, meaning I wouldn’t have to ‘hold-it’ each night until the sun came up.)

I opted for a ‘spot-cleansing’ shower since both water pressure and hot water were lacking. Passed the resident goats on the way to breakfast where I contemplated why the egg yolks weren’t as yellow as they are at home. The 5 of us reviewed the trip and work itinerary for the next 8 days. At about 10 AM we set out for the Acholi Quarter to meet the Project Have Hope women and this was when I encountered Boda-Boda’s, Kampala preferred method of transportation. Instead of a typical taxi ride, which could leave you stuck in traffic for hours, you hop on motorcycles whose drivers take you anywhere you’d like to go for cents. I stood there, helmet in hand, terrified but playing it cool. I had never been on a motorcycle before and my driver recognized this 2 minutes into the ride. He casually asks if this is my first boda ride, I reply yes, asking how he knew, to which he says “your hand hurts my shoulder.”  I apologize, release my death grip, and attempt to explain that I am holding on for dear life mainly because I can’t get the thoughts of being flown from the bike or side swiping a car or person out of my head. He simply says, “You’ll be fine” and laughs as we weave in and out of traffic.