Yet another reason to shop local…local small business

Several days ago I received an email from my brother asking me to join a boycott of Target Corp, sponsored by MoveOn.org.  The boycott is being called for because of Target Corporations recent corporate campaign donation, to a far right leaning, anti-gay candidate.  Candidate T0m Emmer was given $150,000 by Target Corp, his campaign was also supported by another locally based Big-Box retailer: Best Buy Corp donated $100,000 to Emmer.

Earlier this year, in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Supreme Court case – the highest court in the country ruled that it was o.k. for large corporations to donate “small” amounts of corporate dollars to campaigns.  This ruling opens the door for large corporate interests to give to candidates that will be friendly towards their specific interests and policies.

In an article printed in the LA Times, Move On.Org’s Executive Director, Justin Ruben, states that many other large corporate interests are watching Target and Best Buy, who have taken the lead in donating to a campaign.  Other corporate interests are waiting to see what the consumer backlash toward corporate campaign contributions really amounts to, before they make a contribution.

Personally I have long-held a boycott of Walmart Corp – for many reasons, that are far to numerous to be summed up in this space.  I have instead opted to give a lot of my hard earned dollars to Target, who I saw as a more local (MN based), friendlier alternative, to Walmart.  Unfortunately, in light of this recent news – I cannot support Target Corp. any longer either.  I have passionately written about speaking with our dollars, the only voice that is recognized by big-business in this country.  I will now be passionately seeking alternative, local businesses, to supply the products that I may have otherwise purchased at a nearby Target or Best Buy store.

I will not insist anyone else join me – but, I will ask that you at least consider the evidence presented here and make a decision for yourself.  Consider the consequences of turning a cheek and looking the other way…this corporate money will be used in elections in every corner of the U.S., to encourage candidates to support policies that support the corporate interests…further deteriorating the small business marketplace that is struggling to keep a float in this country.

Additionally, I would like to state that the candidate they chose to back was a poor choice (in my opinion) – but I do not support corporate interests donating to campaigns…no matter who the candidate is, or what they stand for.

Stay tuned for updates.  I will try to post some friendly, local alternatives to the big box retailers.

From The Washington Post: Another related article.

How to: Help Haiti

A couple of days ago I was scraping change together to buy a cup of coffee at Caribou, and I was struck by the realization that this change I am scraping together for a cup of coffee is more money than most of the people in Haiti will make in several days.  My dollar can feed a family, or feed my caffeine fix…so I skipped the coffee.

The news is filled with around the clock coverage of the disaster in Haiti.  An already desperate, poor nation has been ravaged by an earthquake – they are left wondering why…?

I know that the number one reason people are reluctant to give is that they do not know if their dollars are really going to make it to the areas that need it most.

Today, if you are interested in giving – you can feel good about giving to Partners in Health.

Partners in Health has been working in Haiti for 20 years to help increase access to basic human necessities: food, water, and healthcare. I read the book Mountains Beyond Mountains last year about Paul Farmer and his work in Haiti.  The story of this organization and the work they have done is amazing and inspiring.  Each dollar is carefully placed into the areas and efforts that need it most.

If you are looking for a way to help Haiti – make a donation, in any amount, to PIH.

Help a Dream Come True…

Everlyne with her family.

Donate NOW!!

Imagine you were born in Africa…

Walking through Nyaoga village, one dark, starry night…I was inspired by Everlyne’s story…

She made me believe…she made me realize…

Grace and light can be present in poverty and red sand…

Everlyne is someone I have come to know through my last two trips to Africa; she is one of the most passionate, positive, grateful human beings I have ever met in my life.  Growing up in a small village in Kenya Everlyne was grateful to have completed her education through her Junior level, in High School.  She was fortunate because so many women do not get to finish primary (elementary) school.

Imagine you wanted to expand your knowledge, more than anything…

When we met Everlyne 10 years ago, she told us that the women in her group did not need business or farming training; they needed to continue their education and graduate high school – to help their kids have a better future.  She was certain of the way forward, Give Us Wings listened and has since helped the women in her group continue pursuing their education goals.

Educate a woman and you educate an entire community…

Everlyne is a natural leader, she has now completed her secondary education – she has been a teacher at a nearby school for the last year.   She has been earning a better living, but she continues to reach higher…she is starting to fly!   Everlyne earned a government scholarship to go to University – she is the first woman in this area to have such an honor.  Her story is already being told, providing hope to many – when she completes her education, she will help others realize that dreams can come true.

You can make a difference, Haba Na Haba…

At Everlyne’s request, I committed to help her find funds to feed her family while she is away at school, she also needs a computer to complete her degree.  I am reaching out to anyone who can help, to please do so.  I rarely make personal appeals such as this…but I am so struck by the resolve and determination of this woman, that I have to do all that I can to help her.

$1, $10, $20, $50, $100, $1,000,000: any amount is accepted – please if you want to help, give what you can.

My goal is to raise $1000 – any additional funds will be given to her family for other expenses.

To assist Everlyne:

If you are able to give any amount to help fund Everlyne’s education goals, please click here and specify that your donation be used, as follows:

1)  In the “purpose of donation” field – select “in memory/honor of”

2)  All the way at the bottom of the page, in the “Special Instructions or Comments” section, specify that your donation is to be used for “Everlyne Okumo”

Please listen to Everlyne tell her story in her own words.

Mantra:  Be grateful, “Love life…love life…love life….”

Why Travel?

a poem that always inspires me…and tonight I can’t say it any better than this man said it:

That is why we need to travel. If we don’t offer ourselves to the unknown, our senses become dull. Our world becomes small and we lose our sense of wonder. Our eyes don’t lift to the horizon; our ears don’t hear the sounds around us. The edge is off our experience, and we pass our days in a routine that is both comfortable and limiting. We wake up one day and find that we have lost our dreams in order to protect our days.

Don’t let yourself become one of these people. The fear of the unknown and the lure of the comfortable will conspire to keep you from taking the chances the traveler has to take. But if you take them, you will never regret your choice. To be sure, there will be moments of doubt when you stand alone on an empty road in an icy rain, or when you are ill with fever in a rented bed. But as the pains of the moment will come, so too will they fall away.  In the end, you will be so much richer, so much stronger, so much clearer, so much happier, and so much a better person, that all the risk and hardship will seem like nothing compared to the knowledge and wisdom you have gained.

Kent Nerburn in letters to Mt. Son

There will be moments of doubt, right here in this life that we are leading now…you don’t need to travel to another country …you can challenge convention, and create a life of meaning right here.  Don’t let anyone tell you – you can’t.

Millions of creative minds, doing what we do best, on our own terms – that is traveling in our time – that is making real change…sometimes it isn’t very far at all – sometimes it is right here.

A mantra:

Peace, Love, Harmony…and Compassion – keep these, let the rest go.

A crowd, twenty-thousand proud…

This is what I am talking about!!

Michael Gracey directed and choreographed the following video that appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show.  Whether or not you are a fan of the show, or of the Black Eyed Peas – you need to watch this!

When you realize that you are among a crowd of 20,000 and all are sharing the same moment, the same feeling, at the same time…it is magical.  The possibility of a more peaceful world doesn’t seem that far off, doesn’t sound that crazy.

The following video is worth sharing, and worth aspiring to…

BTW:

If I were in the crowd, I would totally be the  girl in the blue…

Video: Give Us Wings – Africa Updates 2009

While in Africa this summer, I shot 21 hours of video along the way.  Collecting success stories and footage of the work that is being done in Kenya and Uganda.  Our annual Founders Dinner was held on October 23, 2009.  This is an evening where we invite our Founding Donors to come and see what their donations have been able to do over the last year.

The video is a look at the successes, and the need for additional funding to expand projects – allowing others to have wings and fly on their own.

Wander, be lost – find your way…

Your chances of being happy go up by 9% for each friend your surround yourself with, that is also happy.

This is a statistic I saw in the paper today…I am not sure why I repeat these crazy statistical numbers.  Except that this particular point rings true – I don’t think we needed to conduct an official research study to conclude this stat, however – happiness is contagious, as is laughter, as is anger and fear.  Emotions are alive and hot, in that bubble of energy that we carry through the world with us.  The vibe that you put out around you, does affect the people you encounter.  Awareness of the verbal, and non-verbal communication we use, as well as the energy we possess – is key in all our interactions.

Today, I sit clutching a thin, dirty, worn scrap of paper…a scrap that a young woman wrote a note to me on, a few months ago in Kenya.  It simply says “To my Friend Allison” on the outside of the four folds.  On the inside it refers to the time we spent in her home, talking about her struggles, and it asks for a small amount for parafin (oil to burn in a lamp) and soap.  The young woman who wrote the message, handed me the piece of paper with tears in her eyes…I feel her presence today.

I spent my Friday evening at an uplifting event where a group of us came together to raise money for the cause of improving lives in Kenya and Uganda.  I created a video to let our donors know that they are in fact helping people fly, in Africa.  I left the event and went to an impromptu gathering at a friends house that made me feel as though we, here in the US, need wings too.  We are all looking for a purpose…searching for meaning.  We are looking in corner offices and Gucci handbags – but the purpose is not in the paycheck..or the corporate career. All of the things that we have been told, all of our lives – about what happiness is, are BS.  There is a soft voice inside of each one of us -  a voice that isn’t often heard…the voice that cannot be heard in the dull roar of a Happy Hour at a Minneapolis Hot Spot…the voice that cannot be found in a neatly rolled spliff, or a bottle of booze…a voice that whispers, but needs to be heard.

I get lost when I start to pay attention to the way things are “supposed to be” – but when I keep my eyes forward, my mind quiet,  and my heart open, I feel as though I am going in the right direction.  All in good time, I will realize my purpose and I will fulfill my potential.  I struggle often to put my purpose and my current work into words…when there is little money being earned – we view the work as less important, as lacking value…when I start to listen to the voices that question my motives and wonder when I am going to focus on something with more earning potential – I get lost.

Those who wander are not always lost…wander, be lost – find your way.

Re-Entry

Upon returning to the U.S. I find myself lost in moments, sometimes taken back in them, sometimes in perfect clarity with them. But I have been doing my best to keep to the moment, to not look too far ahead. I have tried at least 12 times to write and reflect in this space, on my re-entry.

Re-entry has made me feel confined by the rules of this society…I want to succeed and I want to play…but at times I cannot imagine my life being about some of the many things I find it being about…

I find myself questioning so many things…
How does someone break away from the confines of the walls and rules of this society…many of us who ponder the meaningful questions in life arrive at this one and get stuck on it.

How did we decide that someone could own a chunk of the world…who ever decided that the grass and the trees were for sale? I have been struggling with this question on my return. Seeing the nomadic Masaai people of Kenya homeless, and then returning to spend time in a sweat lodge on a local reservation is a sad reminder of a very different life…a simpler life. A life that a part of me desires very deeply. A life that is about this moment, it is about enjoying the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees – it isn’t about connections, networking, blackberries and green paper money. Hundreds of years ago people struggled to find food and feed their families in the forest. Today we struggle to find food and feed our families in the crazy corporate jungle. Two different types of stress – the big difference being that the stress on the planet was far less then, than it is now.

Sometimes I feel like the only one who realizes the value of this other life – I must be crazy to think that I would have been happier if I had been born 200 years ago? When things were simpler…although I know that I am here now, in the moment, for a reason. I desire a life where afternoons slip into evenings and the sun shines on me as I do my simple chores of gathering food and preparing a meal. When I am in Africa, I am reminded that yes lives were shorter here years ago…that yes people weren’t as healthy and they didn’t fly and travel so far – but maybe they were happier than we are now…

This “simpler” life still exists in Africa, and I know that I am trying to make things better for them…better how? Better like here? If in the act of helping Africa rise, I must take them down the same road that we are on – a road where convenience and comfort are found at the expense of all other living things on the planet – then I do not see a reason to move forward with my work. Because as I see it, if the whole world becomes a model of this society, if everyone lives the American dream…no one will live for long. All of us placidly living and thinking that all of this is just fine, that the planet can support our carbon footprint and that of millions of others…

I feel as though all of this becomes sort of a example of why balance is important. Traveling from Africa to this country and back again…I am not sure how to balance it out, to make this work there and that work here – it simply doesn’t.

Africa: One more smiling story

The end of a month in Africa! Wow how time flies here, I can’t believe that the trip is over. We leave in just a few hours at about 11:45pm Nairobi time. Mary Steiner and I are flying through London and then to Minneapolis. Rumor has it there is some sort of a terrorist alert, in London. We were planning to go out into the city tomorrow, because we have an 8 hour lay-over, but we are now thinking it might be too difficult with the security alert at high – we will see.

This is the part of the trip where I start trying to put it all into context: why was I here…what I am taking away…did I do as much as I could to help…how will I do more when I get home…what am I feeling about the poverty now? Those are the hard questions to answer and often are not answered until you have been back at home for some time. This trip being much more administrative than the last exposed me to many things that I was not privileged to see on a volunteer trip.

My last few days have been very busy; we traveled to Uganda for two days of work and meetings. I spent a day with members of the Mari Disabilities group, seeing their homes and getting a glimpse of their lives. I chose to spend the whole day with them to get some good video for our 2010 silent auction. The Mari Group was our designated giving project this last year at the auction and they will be again next year. We are trying to raise funds to build each of them a home outside of the Juba slums, where they live now. So I spent time with Zam-Zam, Christopher, and Goretti on Saturday. I won’t go into each of their stories, they are all compelling and I could write a novel on each based on the few hours I spent – but I will talk a little bit about Goretti.

Goretti was chosen because we had seen her house a few weeks ago and were shocked by the size and condition. She is living in a small home that is actually a woman’s kitchen. Many people have smaller mud homes or lean-to type areas as their kitchens, cooking with three stones and firewood is smoky and it is not generally done in the house, unless there is no other option. Goretti is renting this woman’s kitchen, which is about 4ft by 6ft – at 7,000 Uganda shillings a month (about $3.50 USD). She does odd jobs in town to earn money; she manages to put one small meal out for her 6 children each day. I was there at dinner time; the meal was some ugali and some greens – and not very much of either. She had polio as a child and now walks with a cane, as she doesn’t have the use of one of her legs. Her husband died several years ago, she tells me this was not a significant loss, because he used to beat her regularly. Her small kitchen home is about to collapse, the rains pour in and homes like this have been known to cave and claim the lives of those sleeping inside. She cannot move because she generally can’t even pay the 7,000 rent, she can come up with 1500 to 2000 shillings – that is it. The woman who she rents from sees that she is hard-working and helps her by letting her stay for that small amount. Any other landlord would throw her out on the street.

I could go on and on about the hardships I saw in the few hours I spent with her – but ultimately you cannot imagine the suffering in this woman’s life, you cannot imagine getting up every day to a reality like hers. I cannot imagine how this woman beamed with a smile the entire time I sat with her. I mentioned to her that I could hear her saying that she was suffering and I could see it…but I could also see this light in her eyes and she wore a bright smile on her face. This shining smile, I asked her where she found it, in all of her suffering. She said that she had stayed home all day and she was so excited for her visitor (Me) and that she was this happy just to have me there in her home.

If you have been reading my blog, you may be starting to tire of these stories of people with nothing somehow managing to “afford a smile.” I am really trying to drive the point home though… if they can – you can. People who are coming to Africa on our trips often ask if their money could be better spent on a donation to Give Us Wings, versus a plane ticket. Most Kenyans will tell you that your presence is priceless and that the smiles of the people leave when you leave. So the expense of getting here and bringing hope into these suffering eyes is very possibly one of the biggest gifts you could give. I would encourage anyone who is looking for some greater purpose and meaning in their life to come here and expereince this place and these wonderful people.

I am so excited to get home and see all of your smiling faces…I am hoping you will be able to afford a smile for your friend who has spent the last month in a place where smiles are the only thing that many people can afford. See you all soon, I am home only for a night and then I am leaving for 10K festival to see a few of my favorite bands all in one place. I know I will be tired, but I tend to find some energy when Widespread Panic and Dave Matthews take the stage!

I am going to close this and get ready to board my plane with total and complete gratitude for all that I have and all that lies ahead.

Africa: Where stars are holes to heaven.

We are in Nairobi…

Returning from the Rift Valley where we spent an evening. We stayed at Grace and Jon’s farm, where the Giraffes come strolling through at sunset to eat from the top of the trees. We saw a couple of the Twiggers (giraffes in Swahili), from a distance as we drove back to their home, from the outlying Masaai Village. I thoroughly enjoy spending time with Grace and John, they are such a warm and inviting couple, and they are in the running for the world’s cutest couple. She is 65 and he is a little older, I could hear them breathing in the night and I kid you not, one would breathe in and the other would breathe out – in perfect harmony! They raised their own children (5 I believe) and then they decided to help other children who had no one. The kids living with them are ranging in age from 6 or 7 to their early twenties, all are in school – most of them have no parents to turn to – Grace and John, and the other kids on the farm have become their family.

That night, leaving the farm house (on my way to the outdoor toliet) I was treated to a star show like nothing I have ever seen! The moon had not risen over the mountains behind their home yet, so the sky was very clear and dark. My breath was taken away…I was walking with Mary A, and we actually both started laughing because we were so happy with the sight before us. I can’t help but make the comparison to one of Jack Johnson’s songs – he talks about “remembering when the stars were still the holes to heaven.” I can imagine all of the people sitting in their dark homes across the valleys and villages of this part of the world. Staring in awe at the amazing sight in the sky, lacking the knowledge to know exactly what these stars are…maybe some do see holes to heaven. Last night, we were talking about night-time being the hardest for people because of the lack of electricity or even oil for their lamps. Most sit in complete darkness once the sun goes down – apart from the natural moon light.

Can you afford a smile?

Talking with Grace was very interesting, she had just been to the U.S. in February. She was our honoree for the Many Strong and Beautiful Women Award this year. She was chosen for her tireless efforts to help so many children in Kenya. She flew in to speak and receive her award. She was recounting some of the thoughts and images that had stuck. Like the machine that separated the snow to make a path for cars and the frozen lakes. She was struck by the “gap” as she called it, between the U.S. and Africa. This is a thought that I have often had myself…the gap in the amount of things that people have. The fact that in the U.S. we have everything we need (for the most part), while in Kenya there are so few who have even close to what they need; in terms of food, water, education, shelter. Grace was surprised by the fact that so many of the people she met were so unhappy – that having all of these things didn’t make people happy. She in fact mentioned the Maasai people that we had spent the afternoon with and said that despite their lack of the most basic things in life – they can still “afford a smile.” The Maasai we work with are experiencing a terrible drought and often have nothing to eat – maybe some unga (maize flour) mixed with water is what sustains them much of the time…yet they afford smiles and songs.

Somehow I think this work, this trip, is all about people hearing these stories. About realizing that you can afford a smile – if someone who woke up in a mud house, and had unga with water for their primary meal today can afford one – you can too. Just please be grateful for all that you have – don’t look at the images on TV or the man down the street who has more and wish you were someone else. Just be happy. I know this is easier said than done, I know it will be hard for me to recall at times, when I return – but I will have these memories to remind me that even on a bad day I can afford a smile.

I am off to Uganda tomorrow morning – to tie up some loose ends. Heading home late Monday evening, getting into Minneapolis on Tuesday night. We fly through London and have a long lay-over where we may go into the city for a bit. I am sending much love and many smiles back to all of you – I will be seeing you soon.