Contribute to Change: Lumos

Today is J.K. Rowling’s birthday and subsequently – it’s her most famous character – Harry Potter’s birthday as well. For those of you who know me personally, you recognize I’m a huge fan of the Harry Potter series. In fact, I returned just last week from a 10-day trip to Scotland and England, seeing the sights that inspired the series and attending the play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

There are several reasons I love the series, but one that resonates with me is the family Harry creates for himself in place of his parents who died, and his aunt and uncle who despise him. Without a traditional family, Harry finds love and friendship in the people who surround him as he navigates his life in the wizarding world. While I’m fortunate to have grown up with a loving family, I have also found love and friendship in people who aren’t my blood relatives. Family or friend, I recognize that a strong support system is an important key to happiness and that’s why I’m supporting Lumos today.

Lumos is a non-profit organization founded by J.K. Rowling to help the eight million children living in institutions that deny them love and care. The organization’s website notes 80% of these children are not orphans, but have been separated from their families because they are poor, disabled or from an ethnic minority. These children are hidden and voiceless and are often harmed, abused or exploited. Lumos’ mission is to end the use of orphanages and institutions and to find these children a strong support system.

An article by Dr. Shirley Gracias, a consultant psychiatrist, shares how the Harry Potter series exemplifies the way institutions shape the development of a child’s resilience and personality. Harry and Voldemort had similar childhoods in that they both lost their parents as babies and grew up around people who didn’t care for them. Still, the two characters have differing personalities. Dr. Gracias points to Harry’s parents being able to care and love him for the first few months of his life. Meanwhile, Voldemort never knew the love of his mother and spent his childhood in an institution. Voldemort’s early social relationships and the care he received shaped his personality. This is what Lumos hopes to prevent by bringing children out of the shadows and into the light.

Lumos partners with governments, professionals, communities, families and children to develop accessible health, education and social services that meet the individual needs of these children. It also ensures families have what they need to help children develop to their full potential. Today, I’m donating $25 to Lumos, you can join me by clicking HERE.

Sources:

https://wearelumos.org/

http://www.deinstitutionalisationguide.eu/

https://www.litfieldhouse.co.uk/consultant/dr-shirley-gracias

https://bounding-heart.tumblr.com/post/146608859888/harry-potter-the-boy-protected-by-his-mothers

https://wizardsandwhatnot.com/2017/07/30/j-k-rowling-speaks-about-her-charity-and-her-personal-fears/

Contribute to Change: Disaster Relief

Natural disasters kill people, ruin livelihoods and leave communities with years of recovery. As a news producer for the past 6 years, I’ve covered a fair number of these devastating events. When people see and hear these reports, they want to do something to help. Unfortunately, sometimes it ends up becoming a burden due to unwanted and unusable donations from strangers.  

NPR reports by some estimates, about 60 percent of items donated after a disaster can’t be used. These include thoughtful items like clothing and food, but also unnecessary items like teddy bears and jewelry. The biggest problem with these mailed-in or dropped off donations is many times, no one is set up to receive the goods, which makes it difficult for victims to take advantage of them.

There are, of course, several proactive ways you can contribute in the wake of disaster. The most effective way is to donate money. Cash allows relief organizations like the Red Cross or UNICEF to purchase supplies locally and deliver them quickly. These local purchases also support the economy which helps further recovery. It’s these organizations that run shelters, provide meals and help people cope as well.

If you’re unable to donate money, don’t resort to material items. You can organize a school fundraiser or a community event. In this option, you’re able to donate your time, your resources, and spread the word about the cause. This last one is especially important because the recovery doesn’t end when the news coverage ceases. It takes years for communities to get back on their feet again. When organizing your efforts, work with major players like Red Cross or contact state disaster organizations listed HERE. After all, these are the professionals and they know what’s needed, making the most of your choice to volunteer or donate.

 

This year we’ve already seen wildfires, flooding, tornadoes and more. That’s why, rather than picking one particular event, I’m going to donate to the Red Cross in hopes of contributing a little bit to each recovery effort. If you’d like to give as well, click HERE.

Sources:

http://www.redcross.org/about-us/our-work/disaster-relief

http://kidshealth.org/en/teens/natural-disaster.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2013/05/22/the-best-ways-to-donate-to-help-disaster-victims/#4545d0e554b3

https://www.fema.gov/volunteer-donate-responsibly

http://www.npr.org/2013/01/09/168946170/thanks-but-no-thanks-when-post-disaster-donations-overwhelm

http://money.howstuffworks.com/10-worst-things-donate-after-disaster.htm

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/when-disaster-relief-brings-anything-but-relief/

http://www.consumerreports.org/charities/best-charities-for-your-donations/

https://www.nvoad.org/voad-members/stateterritory-members/

 

 

Contribute to Change: 147 Million Orphans

My original resolution for Contribute to Change was to post biweekly, contributing to organizations working to help others across the globe. While it’s fallen by the wayside slightly, I’m lucky to have two roommates who inspired me to get back to it with their recent trip to Honduras alongside 147 Million Orphans.

Jenna and Faith are sisters and it’s a pleasure to live with them. If you’ve met either of them, you know they’re giving people with loving souls. Rather than saving up to go on a summer vacation to the beach or a big city, they decided to visit a place that really needs help: Honduras.

The trip was through 147 Million Orphans, an organization providing the critical needs of children impacted by the orphan crisis and living in poverty. 147 Million Orphans says provision begins with the vulnerable child, but they also work to preserve families through sustainable income projects and community reconstruction. 

This reconstruction is what Jenna and Faith’s trip entailed. I could tell you all about it, but Jenna wrote her own post and I encourage you to take the time to read it HERE.

I also invite you to join me in contributing to 147 Million Orphans and their efforts to end the ongoing orphan crisis cycle by clicking HERE.

Contribute to Change: Run for Charity

As I rounded the corner and saw the finish line, all I could think was, “I did it.” For someone who used to dread the mile-run in P.E. class, I didn’t expect to have three half marathon finisher medals hanging on my bedroom mirror at 28-years-old. Now, I’m preparing to run my 4th half marathon, Rock ’n’ Roll Nashville, this Saturday. I know I’m not alone in this surprise. Running continues to become more popular and it seems everywhere I look in this city there’s a 13.1 or 26.2 bumper sticker on the back of a vehicle. While the big races aren’t for everyone, I’d wager many of you wouldn’t say no to a 5K, fun run, or walk.  

As more and more people hit the road or the trail, the opportunities for doing so while helping others continue to grow. It’s a philanthropic event that combines personal fulfillment (finishing the race) with the passion of giving back to something that matters to you. According to Runner’s World, U.S. road races pulled in $1.2 billion for nonprofit organizations in 2012.

While races bring in big bucks, it’s important to find out how they are contributing to a non-profit before signing up. There are usually two ways in which donations are made. Either all or a portion of your race registration fee goes to the non-profit OR you must register with a charity partner to raise money. For example, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon Series headlines as a “St. Jude” race series, but if you simply sign up for the race, you won’t be donating to St. Jude. Instead, you can make a separate donation during sign up or join a charity partner and raise money as you lead up to race day. Either way, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon Series says runners and walkers have fundraised over $335 million for their favorite charities since 1998.

While I didn’t join a charity partner for my race, my former colleague and good friend, Casey Geraldo is raising money as part of Take Steps for Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America (CCFA). Take Steps is CCFA’s national walk, the nation’s largest event dedicated to finding cures for digestive diseases. Over 1.6 million American adults and children are affected by these digestive diseases, including Casey’s fiancé and my friend, Drew. You can learn more about why Casey is walking and help her reach her fundraising goal HERE.

While the above races require fundraising, others support a headlining charity through the registration fee. These usually feature the charity name or related information in the title, like Hike2Heal. I signed up for the Hike2Heal 5K this year as part of my Jazzercise team. We wanted to contribute to the cause which promotes healthcare for the students at Raise the Roof Academy in Uganda. The registration website clearly stated 100% of the race cost and general donations went directly to the medical clinic.

Whether you’re registering for a charity-specific race or choosing to fundraise with a charity partner, it’s all for a good cause. Runner or not, sometimes a passion to help others is the way to get started. So, lace up your tennis shoes, pick a cause you support and don’t forget to run your heart out.

Sources:

http://www.runnersworld.com/newswire/charity-running-more-competitive-than-ever

http://womensrunning.competitor.com/2015/03/training-tips/how-do-i-raise-money-for-charity-while-also-training-for-a-race_36274#u0vERkjA4ews2cd2.97

http://charity.runrocknroll.com/en/charity-listings/

http://www.runrocknroll.com/#findrace

https://runsignup.com/Race/Events/TN/Nashville/Hike2Heal

Contribute to Change: No Lean Season

Update 10/21/2019 – Author’s Note: Evidence Action, the nonprofit that runs No Lean Season has discontinued this program. However, Evidence Action is still doing a lot of good so I still support their other efforts. Learn more about why they stopped No Lean Season here: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/6/7/18654620/evidence-action-no-lean-season-givewell

It’s a cliché wish made by beauty queens everywhere: end world hunger. It may seem far-fetched with some 795 million food insecure people in the world, but what if something as simple as a bus pass could do the trick? Evidence Action’s ‘No Lean Season’ is a beta program that gives low-income agricultural workers the opportunity to migrate to urban areas so they can earn wages during their off-season.

When you think of the off-season in agriculture, you probably don’t picture farmers and ranchers struggling to put a meal on the table for their family. In the United States, ag producers benefit from the ability to store and market crops year-round. This enables them to make it through the period between planting and harvest. Unfortunately, that’s not the case in many regions of the world. A 2016 Yale University study finds seasonal hunger affects 300 million of the world’s rural poor.

‘No Lean Season’ has a solution to the problem: help low-income ag workers get another job during these months of sparse-income. Since many households are too vulnerable to risk migration, ‘No Lean Season’ alleviates this constraint by giving them a relatively small transfer covering the costs of transportation and a few days of food. This allows people looking for work to reach urban locations where jobs are available.

Yale University says they’ve seen a 30-35% increase in food and non-food expenditures for households who accepted the incentive and sent a migrant to the city. In addition, 550-700 more calories are consumed per person per day under the program. This is the equivalent to an extra meal per person.

Evidence Action is currently working with other organizations to bring No Lean Season to scale in Bangladesh between 2017-2021. It’s expected to directly benefit more than 310,000 households (with 1.4 million family members) over that period. Currently, they are researching other potential sites where they can test this solution and hopefully bring it to a global scale.

‘No Lean Season’ is still in early stages of development, but its innovative, yet simple approach to combatting hunger is something I thoroughly support. There will always be problems and there will always be solutions, but efficient solutions breed progress. That’s why I chose to donate to No Lean Season. You can follow this LINK and click on the ‘Give’ tab to donate as well.

Sources:

http://www.givewell.org/charities/evidence-action/march-2016-grant

http://www.noleanseason.org/

http://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/december-2016/seasonal-hunger-deprivation-are-under-the-radar/

http://www.wfp.org/hunger/stats

https://www.theigc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/No-Lean-Season-1-pager-final-.pdf

http://faculty.som.yale.edu/MushfiqMobarak/featuredresearch/No%20Lean%20Season.pdf

Contribute to Change: Expand Education

Poverty is a global problem and so is access to education. The two issues create a circle of economic disparity. In the United States alone, 32 million children live in low-income families. When money is lacking, so is a young student’s access to early reading and pre-school education. Beginning students start out behind and are sometimes never able to catch up. It’s part of the reason low-income students are six times more likely to drop out of high school and fewer than one third of them will enroll in college. According to dosomething.org, if the 1.3 million dropouts from the Class of 2010 had graduated, the nation would have seen $337 billion more in earnings over the course of the students’ lifetimes. This number is staggering and lends itself to the notion that education is progress and even economic prosperity.

I chose to research two charities working to fill the education gap because role models of mine support them whole-heartedly.

First, Horizons National is a tuition-free academic program serving low-income, public school students. The program is hosted for six-weeks in the summer on campuses of colleges & universities. Horizons National says it retains 84% of students and families year to year and boasts that 91% of its students attend college or other post-secondary training. Allison Williams, star of HBO’s Girls and daughter of long-time broadcaster, Brian Williams, is an official ambassador for the organization. People.com says the program launched in her hometown school and has since grown to serve 51 communities in 17 states.

Second, Let Girls Learn, brings together several government agencies to give adolescent girls around the world the access needed to obtain a quality education. The initiative runs through the Peace Corps and was launched by President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama in March 2015. Let Girls Learn reports globally, more than 62 million girls are not in school. In some countries, fewer than 10% of teenage girls complete secondary school. Let Girls Learn leverages public-private partnerships to provide safe access to schools, to help rebuild education systems, and to create alternative learning programs. The organization also trains thousands of volunteers and tens of thousands of community leaders to advance education and work with leaders on solutions to overcome these barriers.

Today I’m donating $20 to both organizations. I hope you’ll join me in supporting the expanded access of education. DONATE to Horizons National and Let Girls Learn.

Sources:

https://www.horizonsnational.org/

http://www2.guidestar.org/profile/06-1468129

http://people.com/celebrity/allison-williams-raising-money-for-horizons-national-10-days-of-giving/

https://letgirlslearn.gov/

https://www.peacecorps.gov/about/global-initiatives/let-girls-learn/

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/08/10/5-facts-about-americas-students/

https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-education-america

https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372

Contribute to Change: Malaria

Nearly half of the world’s population is at risk of contracting malaria. The disease, transmitted to humans through female mosquito bites, claims hundreds of thousands of lives each year. In fact, in 2015, there were 429,000 deaths worldwide. While the work of the World Health Organization and charities like Against Malaria Foundation have helped reduce malaria mortality rates by roughly two-thirds in the last 15 years, the funding for eradicating this disease has flat-lined. In 2015, global malaria financing totaled $2.9 billion. WHO says to achieve global targets, contributions must increase to $6.4B annually by 2020.  This is where donations from the public can make a difference, because malaria really isn’t that expensive to prevent.

There are currently two main vector controls used in malaria prevention; insecticide-treated mosquito nets or indoor residual spraying. The Against Malaria Foundation is a non-profit that uses public donations to buy the nets. They work with distribution partners to distribute nets and ensure use. They also conduct net use surveys and track monthly malaria data. Givewell.org estimates the cost to purchase and distribute an AMF-funded net is between $4 and $6. Since an estimated 43% of the population in sub-Saharan Africa was not protected by treated nets or by insecticides sprayed indoors in 2015, you can see how donating just $5, can help the WHO reach its goal to control and eliminate the disease in the next 15 years.

Once you learn about the prevention methods, it may seem unusual the disease hasn’t already been eradicated. Unfortunately, malaria occurs most often in poor, tropical and subtropical areas of the world. With many unable to afford treatment, the disease then runs rampant among the most vulnerable groups within these populations. The Centers for Disease Control says the most vulnerable groups are pregnant women whose immunity is decreased by pregnancy and young children who have not yet developed partial immunity to malaria. According to WHO, malaria takes the life of a child every 2 minutes. Fortunately, there is a new effort to eliminate malaria, a vaccine, which will be rolled out in three countries in sub-Saharan Africa in 2018. If all goes well, WHO will decide whether to deploy the vaccine on a wide scale. A further step by WHO to reduce malaria mortality rates by at least 90% by 2030.

If you would like to donate to the Against Malaria Foundation to provide nets and help the World Health Organization reach the above goal click this link: https://www.againstmalaria.com/donate.aspx

Sources:

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2016/funding-malaria-vaccine/en/

http://www.latimes.com/world/global-development/la-fg-global-malaria-snap-2016-story.html

https://www.cdc.gov/malaria/malaria_worldwide/impact.html

http://www.givewell.org/charities/against-malaria-foundation

My Resolution

This year, I decided to start what I’m calling ‘Contribute to Change.’ Bi-weekly(ish) I will choose a cause and research it. Then, I’ll post my findings including which charity best supports the cause in hopes of generating support. I’ll also be donating my own money to each cause. Feel free to give me suggestions.

The Bystander Effect

I’ve been watching the Olympics. Many may call the bi-annual event a celebration of international cooperation, but, while I think these competitions can be beneficial to the global society, I also think it highlights the degree of ignorance to which several people adhere to day by day. In a world with an ever increasing population (7.125 billion in 2013), the Earth is becoming its own monumental example of the Bystander Effect. This social psychological phenomenon refers to a case in which individuals do not offer help to a victim when others are present. This probability is inversely related to the number of bystanders. This means, the more people, the less likely someone will step up to help. When you take a moment to think about it, as a whole, our diffusion of responsibility as a global population has reached a grotesque level. Right now, there are an estimated 795 million suffering from chronic undernourishment, according to the World Food Programme. That’s 1 in 9 people. In other words, each day 8 out of 9 of us turn the other cheek to ignore this glaring problem. I’m guilty of it and so are you. Each morning I grab my smart phone off my night stand in my 72-degree air conditioned room, turn on my bed lamp to flood my room with light and read morning headlines from news accounts I follow on Twitter. As I did this yesterday, I saw the following Tweet from the New York Times : “The image of Omran, 5, captured the attention of a public numb to Syrian suffering. He is one of thousands.” The image shows the 5-year-old covered in dust and blood due to the ongoing war in Syria. This headline hit my feed along with stories about Olympic athletes and their gold medal counts, Olympic athletes and their ridiculous drunken shenanigans, and an increasingly repugnant rhetoric that is the media’s coverage of the 2016 election. I’m not saying these other headlines aren’t important, but I think we need to draw more attention to the unrest plaguing our world today. In the next 30 years,the global population is expected to grow to 9.7 billion people, according to The Guardian. We have to stop turning our heads away from other people’s problems. You may feel like there’s nothing you can do about the war in Syria and that’s okay. All I desire is an awareness by the people who live in the richest countries in the world to know about these problems and think about them. Once people put some effort into thinking about these problems, maybe, just maybe, they will go donate to their own community’s food pantry or help out a less fortunate neighbor or even do something as simple as share this post to people who weren’t aware this many people go hungry each day. Global development is necessary. It’s necessary to sustain our future generations, to keep the peace and to evolve our society for the better. I will leave you with this quote from a recent White House press release, “Global development is not ‘charity.’ In an increasingly interconnected world, it’s a crucial investment in the security and prosperity of us all.”

BLM

My friend came to my house last night and knocked on the door. We couldn’t hear him because we were outside. He comes around and we say, “why didn’t you just come in, it’s unlocked.” His reply, “I’m a black man, you don’t just walk into someone’s home.” And we all laughed, including him. And that’s the reality of it. We, in that moment, were light-heartedly acknowledging the fundamental error by society to target one group with hate based on arbitrary stereotypes. But in truth, it’s not light-hearted and the fact that a skin color or a sexual orientation or a gender means you have to grow up learning different ways to act towards a privileged class is discouraging. The fact that people grow up learning they are a privileged class and that’s always going to be the way of it is discouraging. The fault lies with tradition, historical convention, and long-established beliefs. It is our duty to overcome these beliefs and realize that change is progress and this progress needs to happen now. We have to be better as a society. Together. As one.