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The GoodLetter Thursday, May 2, 2002
GoodThings, Inc. :: Stories, actions, ideas, and greeting cards that connect us.
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In this week's issue:
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| :: Favorite GoodThings |
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From Sue Carr of Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| :: This Week's Feature |
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Knocking to Open Doors - by Helga Schaffrin |
| :: Card of the Week |
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GoodThings Greeting Cards on sale now! |
| :: 2001 Spotlight |
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Favorite Inspiration for a Cause: WorldWise |
| :: Good Gravy |
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Music: Mother: Queen of My Heart and Greg Brown's Milk of the Moon
Book: Queen Bees and Wannabes
Film: Kissing Jessica Stein |
| :: The Upshot |
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Joining hands across the world to fight AIDS |
| :: Housekeeping |
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This Week's Feature
Knocking to Open Doors
In Zambia, a part of the world where social problems can seem almost unbearably complicated, the simplest solutions can sometimes make the most difference.
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Editor's Note: This week's GoodLetter marks the wonderful convergence of two of our most popular and well-received GoodLetters. In February 2001, we featured Amy Zindell's story of Deep Roots, an organization formed by friends of an inspiring young Peace Corps volunteer who lost her life while helping provide educational opportunities for children in rural Namibia. In March of this year, we heard from Jessica Neff, a current Peace Corps volunteer whose work in Nicaragua motivated her to create a scholarship program for schoolchildren who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford to complete their high school education. Now, we're thrilled to check in again with Deep Roots -- incidentally, the "Favorite Inspiration for a Cause" in our Favorite GoodThings 2001 campaign -- where we find them on a new but familiar venture. Hope this becomes one of your favorite GoodLetters. Enjoy...
Fellow GoodLetter readers,
"Hello. My name is Helga Schaffrin, and I am a volunteer with the organization, Adopt a Kid in Need." Please, give me some money.
If you have ever been canvassing, fundraising house to house, you know how draining it is. There are wonderful interludes. Someone tells you, "Oh, I have always wanted to sponsor a child in the Third World. I just never knew how to go about doing it. Thank you for coming by." It makes your day. Or a retired school teacher invites you into her home to tell her all about your experience in Africa. However, in between these good moments, you have to deal with a lot of rejection and yet approach every person with renewed energy and a smile on your face as if this was your favorite activity.
The question inevitable creeps up: Why am I doing this?
Two years ago, I spent seven months in rural Zambia as a volunteer for the development organization DAPP (Development Aid from People to People). One evening, lying on my bed with the candle flickering outside the mosquito net, I wrote the following in my journal:
Thursday, March 9, 2000
It's getting late, but I can't fall asleep. That girl's question is still haunting me: "What can you do?" Really, what CAN you do?
I was out at Mwanza today for the Q & A with the Anti-AIDS club there. At the end, Rhodah stood up and said, "Sometimes both parents die from AIDS. Then you have to live with your grandmother. And you are smart, and you want to continue school. But your grandmother cannot afford. What can you do?"
I was not prepared for this, even though it's such an obvious question.
"You should ask other relatives for help," was my first attempt at an answer.
"What if they can't afford?" I had seen this coming.
I fell back on the typical IGAs [income-generating activities] that DAPP advocates: crafts, raising chickens, selling vegetables. The kids reminded me that you don't have time to run a business when you are supposed to study. Helplessly, I finally recommended that the orphan could approach the local church or an NGO.
But that's not an answer either! The churches don't have much money, and I don't know of any NGOs paying for education in this area.
It's ridiculous. The school fees are less than $10. How easy would it be for people in the developed world to forego an evening at the movies and send this Zambian child to school for a year? What hope is there for these children to improve their lives, if they can't even get the benefit of an education?
Rhodah is doing very well, but the school will kick her out if she doesn't pay the fees soon. I agreed to bring in the money -- Kwacha 27,000 [~$9] -- next time I go to Mwanza.
The answer was as simple as it was scary: We had to start a scholarship program. Certainly, we would find people around the world willing to make a donation to fund a Zambian child's schooling. We could even incorporate an element of cultural exchange by letting the sponsors exchange letters with the kids.
It seemed like a crazy idea, but then turning down a perfectly good job offer to pay to work in Africa had seemed like a crazy idea, too. Thus, Cat and I decided to start AKIN (Adopt a Kid in Need) with the goal to help gifted children who cannot otherwise afford an education.
Maybe the two of us are crazy, but we aren't the only ones. Last summer, I accidentally landed on Deep Roots' Web page. Here was another group just like ours, a bit older and more experienced, a bit bigger with more volunteers, but with the same vision. I sent an e-mail to their director, hoping for some good advice. Half a year later, Deep Roots and AKIN entered a one-year partnership with the intention of merging at the end. Although each organization was changing lives on its own, we believe that together we can achieve even more. For an immediate and very tangible benefit for AKIN, Deep Roots is now hosting our Web page. On the personal side, it has been wonderful to meet and work together with so many dedicated and amazing volunteers. Each of us has been touched in some way by the need of the African children.
I tell you why I knock on those doors: Because there was no answer to Rhodah's question and because there should have been, for her and for the thousands of other orphans in Zambia who can't enjoy their fundamental right to an education.
:: Helga Schaffrin
New York, New York
Helga first fell in love with Africa in an African literature class in college. Currently, she is following her other passion, the study of mathematics, as a Ph.D. student at New York University, but doesn't let that stop her from working with and for the wonderful people she met in Africa.
(Thoughts on Helga's GoodLetter? Inspired by what you've read? E-mail us
-- don't forget to tell us your name, where you're from, and if we can use your words in a future GoodLetter or on our Web site.)
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Favorite GoodThings 2001 Spotlight
Every other week, we use this space to remind you about the extraordinary work of one of our Favorite GoodThings 2001 campaign honorees. The profiles of our honorees -- a wealth of ideas, actions, and organizations for a better world -- have a special home on our Web site. Check them out and be sure to let us know what you think.
This week, in keeping with the GoodLetter about the continuing positive work of Deep Roots and its partner organizations, we're happy to feature Deep Roots' co-honoree for our "Favorite Inspiration for a Cause" in 2001, WorldWise:
WorldWise
The non-profit brainchild of sailing enthusiast Kate Menser, WorldWise transports good the old-fashioned way -- with the help of gentle breezes and favorable ocean currents. WorldWise reaches ports throughout the world with the help of the tall ship Picton Castle. Before shipping off from Nova Scotia in November 2000, Menser collected more than twenty donated tons of educational textbooks, National Geographic maps, and other school supplies, and has since been delivering them into the delighted, waiting arms of schoolchildren on isolated islands in some of the most remote corners of the world. As an added motivation behind their journey, Menser and the WorldWise team are using their Web site to teach North American students about their cultural experiences in distant lands. WorldWise represents a unique and refreshing marriage of passion and mission, where feeling good and doing good are impossible to distinguish.
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Read the GoodLetter about WorldWise.
:: Learn more about
WorldWise.
And stay tuned for next week's brand-new GoodLetter next week offering a special Mother's Day perspective of WorldWise and the good things the group continues to do!
We love to hear from you about anything: ideas or situations that are inspiring you or challenging you to think, as well as organizations, programs, and people that contribute to your community and the world everyday. Please drop us a line.
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The Upshot
As African nations like Zambia and Malawi struggle to gain momentum in the fight to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS, innovative and practical efforts continue to make headway in other parts of the world. And now, in a remarkable gesture demonstrating that the battle against infectious disease is not one for individual countries to wage in isolation, but is, in fact, a shared global effort, a pharmaceutical researcher in Thailand, Dr. Krisana Kraisintu, has spearheaded an effort to make affordable drugs available in parts of Africa that need them most.
The successes she has had at home in her role as head of Thailand's Government Pharmaceutical Organization have been applauded worldwide. She hopes to make the same inroads in Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe. Certain antiretroviral drugs that have had some positive results in the management of HIV/AIDS in developed countries are not available to people in much of Africa because they cost too much. With Dr. Kraisintu's help, many more people will now have the opportunity to benefit from such drugs. Her heroic campaign is a tremendous step in the right direction.
:: Get inspired by the HIV/AIDS work of Dr. Krisana Kraisintu.
:: Get more uplifting information about unique international collaborations, such as Youth Against AIDS, in this crucial humanitarian war from AIDSChannel.org.
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Good Gravy
Music, Books, Films, and Radio
Please click through to our Web site to see what we're reading, watching, and listening to and, while you're at it, let us know what we're missing.
Great New Music!
Mother: Queen of My Heart Various Artists (2002)
Milk of the Moon Greg Brown (2002).
Remember when Mom would sing to you? Here's a new album of songs you can sing back to her. Plus, the amazing Greg Brown offers more musical sustenance. Read the reviews.
Great New Book!
Queen Bees and Wannabes Rosalind Wiseman (2002)
The founder of the Empower Program, a cruelty- and violence-prevention organization, offers a book that anyone who knows a teenager will find helpful. Read the review.
Great New Film!
Kissing Jessica Stein (2002)
Seems everyone wants to kiss Jessica Stein. Why, then, is her love life so complicated? This refreshing romantic comedy is all about finding the things that make life worth living. Read the review.
GoodThings on Public Radio
Have you been checking out GoodThings on Public Radio? Here are some of our favorite public radio pieces this week (follow the link below to the full summaries on our Web site):
:: "Remedy for Our Wounds" -- Peruvian folksinger Susana Baca was in New York City on September 11 in an unlikely situation. She was recording her new album.
:: Ambassador of Joy -- If you live in St. Louis or are just passing through, you might be lucky enough to see Bob Jamerson's uplifting one-man marching band.
:: Shooting for the Moon -- In the global fight against infectious disease, the tiny African country Malawi plans an aggressive strategy with the help of a new $300 million grant.
:: "The Futility of Violence" -- Novelist Ann Patchett's Bel Canto uses a tense hostage crisis to show how music can bring seeming enemies together.
:: Taking Ownership for Community -- With their small town on the decline, the people who call one Minnesota hamlet home have joined together as business partners in a new restaurant.
:: Igor Has Re-Entered the Building -- 15 years after his species was on the brink of extinction, a proud California condor takes flight again.
:: The Grueling College Try -- With college more costly and admission more competitive, a commentator ponders what her brother is up against.
Visit our site to read full summaries of these stories and listen to your favorites.
Talk to us:
What's the best public radio story you've heard this week?
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