Beyond Orders
July 3rd, 2007
Happy 4th of July! Regardless of how you feel about the legitimacy of our current military activities, we always like to focus on the efforts of US service members seeking to make a positive difference in the lives of the people they encounter overseas.
Beyond Orders was founded by a group of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan whose goal is to make it easy, secure, and efficient for US service members to request items needed by Iraqi communities from anyone in America willing and able to assist.
By logging on to the website, you can either make an offer for items you can send to Iraq or find an item requested by a service member. If there’s a match, you will receive an Army Postal Office mailing address that you can use to mail the items to Iraq just as if you were mailing within the US.
Once the service member receives the donation, he or she will post feedback on how the items were used to help Iraqi communities.
Here’s just one example of a request for soccer balls and small toys:
Think of it as an eHarmony for good deeds! Log in today and find out how you can help the effort to rebuild Iraq in a truly positive way!
Working Bikes Cooperative
June 25th, 2007
In a continent like Africa, a working bicycle can mean the difference between working and unemployment, maybe between life and death.
Working Bikes Cooperative is making a difference by diverting bicycles from the waste stream in Chicago and repairing them for sale and charity in places like the US Gulf Coast, Cuba, Guatemala, Ecuador, Africa and many other places of need.
According to Working Bikes,
In the countries to which Working Bikes ships, a bicycle is often the primary means of vehicular transportation for the majority of the population and is used both for personal transportation and for carrying cargo.
Due to wage differences, a bicycle worth $20 in Chicago can be worth the equivalent of $1,000 in Africa.
If you’re in the Chicago area, you can volunteer with Working Bikes as a bike mechanic, in storefront operations, or at one of their shipping parties. If you’re not, why not stop in and donate something to help them keep the good work going?
In the meantime, check out the blog entitled Two for the Road from the NYTimes that turned me on to this story (and these incredible photos!).
ArkALMIGHTY
June 12th, 2007
Here’s a cool idea that ties in with the new release of the new movie Evan Almighty: ArkALMIGHTY.
Inspired by the themes in the upcoming film, ArkALMIGHTY seeks to follow God’s call for Christians to always do good - to friends, to neighbors, to family members, to strangers.
ArkALMIGHTY is a good deeds program that matches up the needs in your congregation with the talents and skills of the members of your church. Gathering the needs of your attendees, these requests are compiled on a Craigslist-type website administered by your church. Then, the members of your church can easily search through the needs and find ways they can help.
Can you balance a checkbook? Change a leaky faucet? Babysit a child? If you’re ready to jump in, find your church and hit the ground running!
And if you don’t believe me, click here if you want John Goodman to explain it to you instead!
Girls Learn International
April 6th, 2007
If you were intrigued by the theme of educating girls in last week’s post, Developments in Literacy, here’s another great organization trying to tackle the problem.
Girls Learn International was established in 2003 as a service learning initiative designed to bring American middle school and high school students into the global partnership to promote access to quality education for all girls.
Girls Learn International Chapters are based in middle schools and high schools in urban, suburban and rural communities across the United States. With facilitation by college interns, each American-based Chapter is then matched with a Partner Classroom in communities in Sub-saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, India, Nepal, Afghanistan, and Latin America.
The Partner Classroom provides quality education to girls in a community in which girls have traditionally been denied access to, or discouraged from completing, education.
The program works as participants in the American-based chapters engage in a variety of educational, communication, advocacy and outreach projects on behalf of the Partner Classrooms, where they have the chance to develop the critical thinking and problem solving skills essential to good leadership.
Girls Learn International is working to giving girls a better head start both in the United States and abroad. If you want to contribute to the cause, start a chapter in your own school, or purchase some cute clothing, check out their website today!
Travel for Good
April 3rd, 2007
Those of us who grew up in church knew them as “mission trips,” but it appears that traveling with a purpose may be entering the mainstream with a new monniker, as “voluntourism!”
A recent USA Today article quotes Sally Brown, who heads the Indianapolis not-for-profit group Ambassadors for Children, as saying that “the number of travel organizations of various kinds that offer voluntourism trips has probably doubled in the past three years.”
There are many companies offering these unique types of travel experiences:
Sustainable Harvest International focuses on fighting poverty and deforestation in Central America.
Travelocity’s Travel for Good Network can point you to an array of non-profit travel partners representing a wide range of trip opportunities – from environmental work to animal rescue and habitat restoration to humanitarian and homebuilding missions around the world.
GlobeAware is one of those partners. GlobeAware offers one week adventures in service that focus on cultural-awareness and sustainability. All program costs, including the cost of airfare, are tax-deductible.
Ready to take the plunge? For some great tips on planning your voluntourism experience, check out Voluntourism.org. From trip selection criteria to suggestions on handling the post-trip “re-entry,” they’ve dialed in the details of voluntouring, and can help you make the most of your precious vacation time!