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Oregon is home to a number of internationally-focused non-profit organizations, from the Portland-based relief organization Mercy Corps to smaller, more home-grown projects like EduCare Africa or Jamii Moja.
We'll explore why it is that people choose to volunteer their time, money and careers toward improving the lives of people thousands of miles away. What inspires someone to work on the behalf of people on the other side of the earth? What inspires people from here to help people they have never met, who live lives most Americans could barely imagine?
And are these projects worthwhile, both for the people they're intended to help and for those donating their time and money?
Have you chosen to donate your time, energy or money to an international cause — perhaps even for a place you have never been to? What have you done? Why?
Photo credit: JC Kole / Creative Commons
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Regarding my previous comment, I have heard that OHSU may have some training in health care delivery in third world countries. Anyone know anything about this? Clark
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Yes - the program is called Professionals Training in Global Health - its a 10 week course of mid career health professionals - find out more here - http://www.ohsu.edu/xd/education/continuing-education/global-health-center/
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Everyday, I am faced with my good fortune at work in the OHSU bone marrow transplant department. All my petty complaints (i.e. it is raining again in Portland) are put into perspective when I see the ordeals that patients and their families are put through. With this in mind, I am inspired to do my part for those who have been dealt a tougher hand.
My issue of choice, and one that is so far underappreciated in the media, is water. An estimated 2.6 billion people worldwide do not have access to adequate sanitation and approximately 1 in 8 do not have access to safe drinking water, leading to nearly 6,000 water-related deaths per day, most of them children.
Therefore, I have chosen to raise money for an organization that envisions a world where all people have access to this basic human right. Water for People is a non-profit that works in developing countries to help communities design, implement and maintain affordable and sustainable water delivery systems and sanitation facilities. In order to raise money for them, I will be running the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim-to-rim on October 2, 2010. The run totals 42-miles with almost 11,000 feet of elevation gain.
Please check out my fund raising page at www.waterforpeople.org/elanamater to learn more about the wonderful work of Water for People.
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I currently donate every month to Mercy Corps and have volunteered down at their new headquarters many times in the last year. I’ve also always wanted to switch my career from the private sector to working in the NGO/Relief Sector; but have hesitated for years because of a lack of information on how to make such a transition. Now that I’ve been laid-off for a long time and was forced to sell my condo, I am no longer “tied-down” by a mortgage, but find myself middle-aged & still puzzled about the best way to “break-into” the sector while still keeping food on the table. Any suggestions?
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I posted a link to my blog on this topic a little earlier - it's at humanitarianjobs.info. Good luck!
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My name is Mark Seibold.
While taking three trips to the Fiji Islands from October 2003 ~ June 2004 to work on my wife’s immigration to the US, I initiated to provide many hours of public astronomy, aside form additional time spent at Fijian schools with children. The special telescopes that I provided many hours of observing and astronomy teaching with were not only rare instruments for the Fijians to experience for their first time, one of these was a solar research grade telescope with what is known as a hydrogen alpha filter. This allows the observer to witness solar flares and activity on the surface of the sun. Not even the islands large International university had ever experienced this. I was invited for a return lecture to show what is only known as mere popular astronomy in the United States, yet their Education Ministers and many Fijian teachers viewed this as a profound and necessary education for their students. Featured in their news many times, I was also asked to present this to their Prime Minister and his family.
I had previously provided this free teaching service across the US and Canadian continent on a ten thousand mile solo road trip I made in 2000 for the public and schools.
Not only were the live images as observed through these telescopes I provided reported to change many peoples lives across the US and Canada, where many large local colleges in America do not possess special expensive solar telescopes, this had an even further pronounced effect in a foreign country such as the Fiji Islands where they could not afford these instruments.
That information may be viewed here > http://markseibold.squarespace.com/about/
More recently forced into early retirement, with all this professional astronomy equipment and related art knowledge, so needed for education today when we see so much being cut from schools budgets, I am willing to keep providing this service as I do for the public often. If schools or teachers would find this a necessary part of education, they should feel free to contact me. My time is entirely unlimited to the universe.
Mark Seibold, Retired IT Tech, Artist-Astronomy Educator, Portland Oregon www.markseibold.com
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This past June I traveled with 16 other folks, mostly from the Portland area, to Peru to put on a spay and neuter clinic for street dogs in Huanchaco and Trujillo Peru with the Perros Project (perrosproject.org). Portlanders Courtney Dillard and Matt Webber started this effort after a trip to Peru opened their eyes to the high number of street dogs. They, like many Oregonians, wanted to do something to help improve the quality of life for others. One Portlander, Holli, saw a Perros poster in Starbucks and signed up for the trip on the spot. Combining travel and service has great appeal for people. Once we were there it was clear there was an overwhelming need and many of us worked harder and longer than we expected. We plan to return in 2012, and to encourage other spay/neuter organizations to return to the same town in 2011 to continue the work we started and build upon the relationships and skill transfer that we embarked on this year. Recently Courtney and Matt were asked to have dinner with other non-profit leaders in Portland who are helping Peru in various ways. There were many folks on the list...very impressive. And I believe this speaks to something recently mentioned in the New York Times. If your focus is less on consumption and more on creating meaning, and if you feel you already have adequate resources to meet your daily needs, you have more left over to give to others. I believe this spirit of community and service is more widespread in Portland than other cities and regions. Which is why I love my town...my values are supported by others. Incidentally, I had a fundraiser to support my trip with Perros and was amazed by the outpouring of generosity from others who wanted to help the animals of Peru but themselves were not in a position to undertake such a trip. One last thing, myself and another volunteer (veterinarian) brought home two animals...a kitten, and a street dog, who will definitely have a better life here, and will keep our memories of our great trip to Peru alive in our minds. Thank you for exploring this important topic. Kim Upham
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I've donated money locally and internationally, but more internationally even though I know there is plenty of need in Portland.
Donated money to employees of a Sri Lanka company after tsunami in 2004. Sri Lankans produced goods for my employer's company. Donate money to Mercy Corps for Haiti earthquake and other crises.
Occasionally donate small amounts to individuals on Portland's streets. Talk to street people and hear what they have to say.
Occasionally donate larger amounts to small organizations that provide beneficial community services. Donated idle money to this Portland cyclist's family:
http://bikeportland.org/2010/07/02/karl-moritz-clings-to-life-following-crash-on-se-ladd-36026
Even though I've been unemployed a long time I donate money to help others, and to be mindful and thankful for my blessings and opportunties. When I fear I don't have enough for myself I donate something to others. My fear is illusory.
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Wonderful!
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My parents moved to Haiti when I was six and I grew up surrounded by expatriate missionaries and NGO workers who had dedicated their lives to improving Haiti. They were dedicated to their causes--clean water, reforestation, improved schools and hospitals--and passionate about helping Haitians, but by the time we left, when I was fifteen, I was very aware of how little we had accomplished.
I returned to Haiti this spring after the earthquake to do a week of reporting for "This American Life" (www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/408/island-time). Some of the missionary compounds and NGOs that I remember as a child are still operating in Haiti. Many have left. The missionary hospital where I grew up still saves lives, but many of the decisions are made by foreigners, which breeds frustration and anger.
Smaller, Haitian-run clinics have fewer resources than their foreign-run counterparts and more to lose. If an NGO/missionary organization loses funding or moves on to the next cause, the people from that community are left to figure out what to do next.
My parents, and many of the other missionaries I grew up with, were inspired by their curiosity and by a desire to do good in the world. My father planted trees and living terraces, made friends with peasant farmers and still visits friends in Haiti. He gets frequent emails and phone calls from Haitian friends. Haiti has changed his life. But in terms of what he has accomplished, he is the first to admit that it's been only incremental change.
Americans like success stories and we like to do good in the world. There is a certain seduction to countries--like Haiti--where there is so much that needs to be done. Haiti is a reformer's paradise, but it is also a graveyard of development projects. Growing up as a missionary's daughter taught me that I need to be wary of altruism (in particular, assuming that I know what's best for other countries/cultures). But it also taught me that if we are willing to accept the limitations of cross-cultural development projects--lots of failures followed by, at best, incremental change--the experience has the potential to transform us.
Apricot Irving
www.apricotirving.com
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I met a young woman on an international flight heading to Nepal to build houses for a couple of months. She did not speak Nepalese and probably had the skills of a normal high school student in home construction ie. probably never dug a hole, placed a beam, or roofed a home in her life. Good intentions unfortunately cannot be sufficient for experience.
I asked her why she didn't help a local domestic agency like Habitat for Humanity build for homeless Americans. She answered that it was a chance to see the world abroad, she wanted to see the Himalayan Range, she wanted to experience a Third World country and Nepal looks better on a college application than East St. Louis. I would wonder how much this project averages out on a Carbon Footprint? Maybe neighborhood projects like local produce can also be worthwhile.
I think in an age of cost cutting, unemployement and domestic homelessness and aid coordinated worldwide by the Internet and International Agencies, Domestic Aid Agencies need to step up their game to compete with worldwide causes. Globalization has even affected the Charity Industry.
YES, There Are Americans in NEED TOO.
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I work for a social services non-profit in Old Town Portland, and while I wish that I could do more for people struggling around the world, I want to encourage everyone to look to our community if they want to serve- we need help, and it may not be as "glamorous" as serving internationally, but there is a desperate need right here where you live.
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This topic is near & dear to my heart. I both donate and volunteer locally & internationally. It has greatly increased my well being, and I hope and believe I can make choices that help others. I'm very keen on the concept of microlending. KIVA is a great way to help others help themselves by providing very small loans, which are generally unavailable to most people around the world. I am blessed with health, a safe environment, and the opportunity to share my resources. Thanks for this positive topic.
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Sincere curiosity on my part... I'd like to ask all the folks who've gone overseas, what's wrong with the people here at home? With the exception of basic infrastructure (like water) that are publicly supported here, there are lots of folks that could use the $$, teaching, attention and programs to better their lives too.
Is it because the 2nd/3rd world is so much worse off and the potential impact is the greatest? Is it the lure of an exotic local? An affinity for a particular country? A desire to have an impact on the world at large? A desire to improve the world's image of Americans?
Every time I've thought about helping out oversea's I always come to the conclusion that helping my neighbors/neighborhood is more important to me than someone halfway around the world.
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I do believe in think globally and act locally. I can relate to each of the reasons you state, in some manner. I was a volunteer Mathcounts coach for a few years here in a Beaverton school, while I was also committed to the most disadvantaged people half-way across the globe. I would say go for your passion, your own outpouring and your sense of importance; do good without conscious limitation of geography. If you do good in one place, it has an uncanny way to spread..
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I believe both are important and have been involved in both - as a professional (20 years experience) and as a volunteer. My emphasis over the last 4-5 years has switched to abroad, namely b/c the issues many are faced w/ in developing countries FAR exceed the issues faced here - at least on a poulation basis - which is where my interest lay. Here I have focused on policy issues - b/c here the problems seem to not so much be resources and expertise, but the WILL of the people (in the powers that be) to create change.
Regardless, I think the work abroad should focus on doing high quality, evidence-based work that is focused on sustainability and lasting change using appropriate technology that the local community and government has ownership in and can support on its own long after the NGO or volunteers are gone and forgotten. I'm not a big fan of just sending unskilled volunteers off into the big world to do tasks - like volunteering in an orphanage that locals could do. While it's good for educating and changing the person doing the volunteering - it, I believe, does little to create systemic change abroad and the $ spent to send the person oversees would be better spent by the people in the country to cover meet the needs.
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I am the founding chair of the Sustainable Economic and Educational Development Society (SEEDS) (www.seedsnet.org). My day job is as a scientist and architect for Intel Corp. in Oregon.
While I was a student at the Univ. of Texas, we read persistent news reports of deaths from malnutrition and hunger in eastern India's Kalahandi, Bolangir and Koraput (KBK) districts. This region is densely forested, populated by tribals, different in culture from the mainstream of Indian society. It has few schools, little infrastructure or govt. services. Starvation deaths accompanied massive migration, parents reportedly selling off children for a few bucks.
Horrified at this inequity, injustice, I organized people on internet and started community projects in the KBK area, and then spread out. SEEDS, though still small, has grown from the early days of building school huts to irrigation projects, farming cooperatives, education camps, rechargeable solar lights for off-power grid villages, networked computers for rural schools, in a catalytic way.In 1999 eastern India was hit by a ‘Supercyclone'. Death estimate was at 100,000. SEEDS raised $100,000 in donation. We helped rebuild a girl’s orphanage and numerous school houses, funded cattle and goat herds, renovated damaged embankments, irrigation dams. But the most innovative was the setting up of microfinanced microirrigation systems. The villagers had lost everything to wind and water, including all seed stock. In several devastated villages SEEDS people got together farmers with contiguous marginal land and persuaded them to start cooperatives. SEEDS supplied fast growing high yield seeds stock, and installed boreholes, diesel pumps, water distribution pipes and trained villagers to run a cooperative. In four months our cooperatives were producing bountiful rice harvests, sharing with their neighbors, while others in the same village were still on handouts from aid agencies.
Efficacy of our project management style, compared with better funded, large international aid agencies, stands out because of the SEEDS principle of no overhead costs. Our projects cost half for the same outcome. But garnering barely enough resources is still a huge challenge. Yet, personally, it has been a beautiful, satisfying experience.
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In 1998 I answered the call to see the world and went to Mongolia as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I have been a global soul ever since with a passion for women’s issue.
I have founded my own nonprofit focused on empowering women through entrepreneurship. Called Moyo Jasiri (Swahili for strong and resilient heart), we are launching in St. Johns and Nairobi simultaneously.
In St. Johns we are piloting our first ePowerment Center that will serve to strengthen our local economy by facilitating connection, exchange and collaboration among women business owners, while connecting our local community the global community. It will house a global market that will sell local and global niche artisan crafts and products. Technology will also be a central part of it - technology and web 2.0 connects us and provides us opportunities in ways never imagined - even 10 just years ago.
In Nairobi, are working with a fantastic Kenyan woman, Edna, to launch our signature program, AWE (Advancing Women Entrepreneurs), there. By launching our programs simultaneously, we are able to harness “womenonmics”, globalization and the technology revolution to feed two birds with one crouton. (The two birds being women in Portland and Naiobi, of course.) It’s very exciting!The comments about giving locally are exactly why we are starting locally, too. It feels very authentic to be starting in our own backyard without forgetting that we are part of a global family.
You can find us at moyojasiri.com or @moyojasiri on Twitter or jennifer@moyojasiri.com. We would love to connect!
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I volunteer both here and in Nepal with a nonprofit called Ten Friends (tenfriends.org). It's based in Central Oregon and was started by two local teachers who traveled to Nepal with their friends, and decided there were some simple technologies that could make a big difference in people's lives. They delivered stretchers to mountain villages so people had a way to quickly get to the nearest health post. In many parts of Nepal there are no roads, and walking is the only way to move from place to place.
Then, they discovered there were many children's homes in Kathmandu, and that many of the children suffered from serious diarrhea, caused by the poor water quality in the city. They began to partner with locals to place water filters in children's homes, and have placed over 100 so far, both in orphanages and schools.
We were able, through the wondrous generosity of local donations to help purchase a permanent home for an orphanage and support the tuition so the childr4en an receive a quality education.
We also partner with young women in eastern Nepal to support their efforts to become educated as teachers and hopefully return to their mountain villages as a teacher and mentor to both boys and girls. We have just had our first young teacher get a job in her home village. What an accomplishment for her and her village.
I have been a friend of the founders for years, and they finally talked me into joining them in Nepal two years ago. It was simply life changing. A beautiful culture, and stunning scenery. The people of Nepal believe so much in education, and there are so many things that we can do to help. We believe in helping with sustainable projects and that seems to have resonance for me. I know how fortunate my life has been, here in the US, and I feel an obligation to make a small difference in the lives of those who have a much more difficult life.
We are small, and we want to continue to grow as our donations increase, but we are careful to fund only what we feel we can sustain.
It's extremely rewarding, and I hope to share Nepal with others, as Rand and Mark, our founders have shared this wonderful country with me. They are inspiring and enthusiastic supporters of the people of Nepal.
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Great work! Congratulations for your successes to date!
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Is aid dead? The question is out there. Sustainability (teaching someone to fish versus giving one) is what donors are demanding today. People want to maximize their gifts.
After working for Portland-based non-profits for several years, I am now the owner of my own small business (called Half Sky Journeys) that serves non-profits by crafting meaningful international trips. Authentic trips allow donors to better see why and how they can invest and make a difference for people, (especially women and girls) worldwide.
When people get the chance to see, meet real people, feel, smell, taste someplace "foreign" to them, they get a great opportunity to see how little it takes to change the world. They are more likely to think globally, but also to make a difference in their local corner of the world.
Thanks,
ila
503 320 8510
halfsky.org
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I spent most of the last 20 years working for non-profits some of them very large. Currently I am on the board of the Zimbabwe Artistis Project (ZAP) which is a small non-profit doing a big job. What impresses me about project like Africa Bridge and ZAP is how much they accomplish on small budgets. Many times they do much more with much less than larger non-profits.
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I would love to connect about ZAP. Moyo Jasiri is looking for product partners. My email is jennifer@moyojasiri.com
Thanks!
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I heard a story years ago about a man walking along a river bank when a drowning screaming man swirled by, and the walker dived in and saved him.
Hero!
Celebrated in town!
And the same happened the next day.
And again the day after that.
Finally on the fourth day another man stopped the walker and said why don't you do something about that person on the bridge who keeps throwing people off to drown?
And so, that brings up the other side of the "helping people far away question"; who is creating the corrupt kleptocratic governments that cause the extreme poverty, lack of education and jobs and all of the rest of the problems that the "helpers" work to fix?
Last week the Wahab brothers talked about the corrupt kleptocratic Karzai government that the US under the Conservative Republicans Bush/Cheney, installed in Afghanistan.
In large part the poverty and misery in most parts of the world are caused by US based Conservative Corporations going in and corrupting the local governments.
I have tons of respect for "helpers" but I think that we ought to rein in and regulate the Corporate Conservative Corrupters at least enough so that the helpers can catch up.
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Your message was a good one up to the point where you started throwing fud...
Just to be clear Tom... that would be the same corrupt Karzai government that is supported by the Obama administration in a country our current president told us should be our focus (as opposed to Iraq) during his campaign in 2008, yes?
Maybe our president isn't really a closet Muslim, maybe he's really a closet Conservative Republican!
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@rethomas
President Obama and the rest of us are stuck with the mess that Conservative Republicans left us.
But perhaps your magical thinking really can make you believe that President Obama actually traveled back in time and installed Karzai the Corrupt and so is accountable for his corrupt Afghan government.
Sheesh!
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I write a blog about getting a job as a humanitarian aid worker for anyone who might be interested in this as a career:
humanitarianjobs.info
Nick
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Comments are now closed.
I was a Peace Corps volunteer in the Philippines in the 1960's. Now at 67 I would like to be involved with the public health of the island I was on. Interestingly many of the public health issues haven't changed. I would like to be connected with someone with experience who could make suggestions. I have no experience but at some level want to be hands on. I'm thinking of public health scholarships for college students then required to work for a couple of years on the island. However I am open to any form of involvement that helps. Clark Martin PhD