Project Description

OASIS (Outdoor Action for Social and Intrapersonal Stregth) is a project I am running at the Durham Nativity School in Durham, North Carolina. The Durham Nativity School is a nonprofit organization that provides free private school tuition to at-risk middle school students in the Durham area. OASIS is a supplemental retreat program for the students at this school. We take their students (approximately 15-35 students are expected to attend each retreat) on weekend long retreats to various areas that are relatively near (but outside of) the Durham area. Through these retreats, OASIS aims to allow students to grow and benefit from opportunities to partake of events that require them to move outside their comfort zones. These activities are also new, exciting, and fun for the students, and might include such things as parasailing, whitewater rafting, and snowboarding. While challenging, these activities are also both fun and easily possible to complete with a degree of courage and confidence. Also, throughout the weekend, OASIS incorporates small group discussions, large group talks, skits, journal writing activities, and other team-building events designed to bring home our message, connecting the values learned and practiced during the major activities to the serious challenges the students face in their home lives.

Our goal is to help students begin to realize that they have the ability to try new things and emerge successfully from challenges that may seem new or scary. While we do not expect to completely transform a student's character in one weekend, we do hope to positively supplement the character development that is already occurring at the Durham Nativity School and extend the things the students learn in school to a more casual and applicable environment with their peers and friends. This includes several opportunities for academic growth. The principle of the Durham Nativity School has identified writing as a lagging skill, so we are developing several journal writing activities that will help improve writing skills and also facilitate self-reflection and self-evaluation throughout the weekend. Also, the main OASIS activities are extremely fun for the students. These students come from very poor families and experience an extreme number of hardships in their lives. Their likelihood of encountering an opportunity to parasail or snowboard in a safe setting that encourages them to challenge themselves and try new things is very low, if at all existent. Therefore, OASIS provides these opportunities to a population of youth that would most benefit from them and be least likely to find them on their own.

OASIS also has the parallel goal of uniting students from various colleges nearby Durham. Currently, it involves students from Duke University, Elon University, and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. We are hoping to use OASIS as an opportunity for students from the schools surrounding the Durham area to meet each other, attend retreats together, and begin collaborating together on innovative projects and ideas.

Project Description

Sustaining Our World, Saving Ourselves (SOWSO) is a project that utilizes sustainability and holistic definitions of environmentalism as the theoretical fulcrum for changing our communities through education about recycling, human development, seeing youth as agents of change, and building social networks in improving our standard living conditions.

The recent selection of former Vice President Al Gore as a Nobel Prize winner has broken through a barrier of silence and highlighted the imminent dangers that unreflective production and accumulation has had on our country and planet. SOWSO seeks to address these issues by educating communities through teen volunteer projects that hold environmental development at its center. Recycling is more than just fossil fuels or raw materials; sustainability demands that we see our communities and each human being as an invaluable resource to be developed and counted instead of being exploited and cast aside.
We must renew our own human capital in conjunction with revitalizing other forms of capital and resources.

SOWSO has several youth-led activities which involve fun facts, and strategic games which educate and engage participants in actually becoming developers of a sustainable environment which incorporates all elements necessary for a balanced social, political, and agrictultural ecology. At the forefront is the push for citizens to participate in their own local, civic, federal, and global empowerment in collective action.

SOWSO was initiated at the beginning of March 2008 and will continue through until December 2008.

Project Description

We have been thinking that we want to start a farmer's market so the high school kids won't have to go away to get a job. We've been hoping that we could do this for many years. We would like to have tents, tables, seeds and planters where we can grow flowers to make the property look attractive. We want to plant a community garden in the back on the property. The property is behind a gallery that we started. The gallery has all local artists including children's artwork and is run by the Pecos Valley Community Foundation.

Project Description

This is a ministry targeting students and adolescents who are looking for fun things to do throughout the winter season. It is aimed at giving teens a chance to be involved in outdoor snow sports. Our mission is to give them the opportunity to see and appreciate the beauty of our planet while giving them a chance to try something fun and new. Snowboarding is a growing industry and we are hoping to introduce them to a great experience.

Project Description

This was a project aimed to create a self-managed library in New Orleans that would inspire youth ages 5 thru 15 affected by Hurricane Katrina to excel academically through reading and writing. It was also a project aimed to encourage community development, parental involvement in the educational lives of their children, and inspire others to continue in the rebuilding efforts in New Orleans. The project took a few months of planning, but after a summer's dedication, waht resulted was an over 900-book free library open to the youth, family, and friends of the Cutoff Community Center in Lower Algiers. All of the books underwent an extensive organizational process, as they were all alphabetized, labeled according to grade level, organized, and shelved accordingly. All of the information was then manually imputed in an electronic catalog to ensure that the library functioned similar to a typical public library.
This project was created not simply a way to aid in the Katrina Relief efforts, but it was an effort to specifically address the needs of a group of urban youth plagued by economic inaccessibility, drugs, and violence. The Cutoff Youth Library provides a productive and educational outlet for youth that otherwise seek sports and the streets as an outlet.

Project Description

When most of us think of global warming, we think of chilling magazine headlines, prestigious scientists endlessly arguing far above our heads, and endless policy debates focused on the supposedly incompatible goals of protecting the climate we depend on and the economy in which we live. We hear a lot about the end of the world, high-tech solutions that are always just another five years from being feasible on a massive scale, and encouragements to change our light bulbs and buy a Prius. We rarely get the sense that we as citizens can confront climate change head on and improve our lives without destroying the energy systems we have come to depend on. We can.

Over the past few years, I have been building a new approach to global warming - one based on the economic and community development opportunities that a new energy society provides and the creative potential of citizen leaders to build a sustainable vision for their communities. The work I do is people powered - dependent on the collective ingenuity and self-empowerment of groups of citizens to develop climate solutions that save them money, strengthen their communities, and share models for a new energy society - all while creating solutions to the climate crisis. As a student leader harnessing Macalester College's student leadership and institutional commitment to climate solutions, as a Twin Cities Metro-area innovator inspiring, connecting, and pioneering local climate solutions projects, and as a national leader of the youth climate movement through groups like the Sierra Student Coalition, I seek to integrate this vision into a bold action plan for citizen-leaders, our communities, America, and the world.

In fall 2005, I started tackling the finance challenge through the campus student organization, MacCARES. Most campus groups spend months (or years) securing commitment and funding for a sustainability project, and once completed have to start back at square one. Such a process only reinforces the assumption that a sustainable society will require costly sacrifices demanding untold expense that we can scarcely afford. Instead, I launched the Clean Energy Revolving Fund (CERF), a Macalester College finance mechanism that provides upfront investment for sustainability projects that cut costs or generate revenue and reinvests the return to grow the fund for future projects. Revolving funds have been established by other colleges, but primarily at the administrative level, missing incredible opportunities for student innovation and collective empowerment. In March 2006, I designed the charter of the fund, including a CERF Board of 2 students, a faculty member, administrator, and alumnus, operating by consensus to empower cost effective sustainability projects primarily inspired, developed, and implemented by students. Since then, I have:

1. Grown CERF to $67,000 (will reach $100,000 pending supplemental funding for an exceptional project), including $27,000 within a month of establishment.
2. Established a dedicated 5-person Board (on which I serve) guiding the fund's project choices.
3. Approved lighting efficiency, insulation, water conservation, and appliance efficiency projects, with returns ranging from 20% to 200+% annually.
4. Presented CERF at a number of regional and national conferences as an applicable sustainability finance technique both on and off campuses.
5. Co-authored a CERF Manual. through the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) to help students at other schools develop such funds on their own.
6. Assisted students at half a dozen schools nationwide to help them establish their own revolving funds.

Building CERF on campus is just a beginning: I see cost-effective energy-saving projects as a key financing tool for broader community movements towards sustainability. I formed a team of students to run a citizens conference uniting non-profit leaders, farmers, labor advocates, students, and local residents in February 2007 to explore how we empower positive community action for climate solutions. Out of the conference, we formed the World Energy Community Action Network (WeCAN), a collaboration-based climate organizing vision supported by a user-based website being built by a volunteer team of student developers. This team has already started projects with wind energy, eco-industry and mixed-use development, sustainable agriculture, transit planning, and more - starting in the Twin Cities and already expanding further through student networks. As we build efficiency-based financing tools to empower these community solutions, WeCAN will serve as an open-source forum for idea generation and resource sharing among communities across the region. February's citizens' conference has also built many of the community and organizational partnerships that I have depended on as the community efficiency solution has developed. Though not operated through a specific organization, this project relies on several, as well as independent citizens and small business owners.

In fall 2007, I interned with the Neighborhood Energy Connection (NEC) researching the effects of aggregation (grouping houses instead of improving them one by one) on the profitability and opportunity for community building presented by energy efficiency improvements like insulation, weatherization, and heating improvements. Residential efficiency offers incredible opportunities for cost saving, energy and carbon reduction, and ongoing community sustainability planning, but is rarely tapped since energy savings are dispersed among thousands of houses. Using my experience with CERF on campus and a network of partnering non-profits, clean energy financiers, student climate leaders, and citizen innovators across the region, I'm creating a community efficiency program for the Twin Cities. The co-op that is developing will organize communities, such as those along University Ave. in St. Paul, group efficiency projects, facilitate contracting, community work, and future sustainability planning, and attract the extensive quantities of investment that will be required. We're starting in the Twin Cities, but as the community organizing model is perfected, larger investment secured, and partnerships develop, we'll expand to other regions where support already exists.

Moving forward will require extensive project development, particularly to ensure that investment actually benefits communities and that creative solutions are actually replicated as systems like WeCAN develop. It will also entail expanding college-level revolving funds as pilots and leveraging tools for further investment in communities outside the Twin Cities. Immediately, I'll be implementing community efficiency projects in three test communities this spring while simultaneously finalizing plans for co-op development. By recycling revenues from efficiency towards the next steps towards sustainable communities, community efficiency will empower ordinary people to take charge of our climate future in ways that improve their everyday lives. In doing so, we will reframe climate solutions as opportunities for neighborhoods to discover creative and empowering ways to run their communities - starting with efficiency.

Project Description

FORGE is a US-based international nonprofit organization that works with displaced communities in Africa. We invest in individuals affected by war to pursue education, economic self-sufficiency, and local development solutions in order to build capacity in African communities and lay the foundation for peace, stability and prosperity.

By investing in promising refugee individuals, FORGE provides opportunities for refugees to transform their home communities, both in camps and in the countries where they will eventually repatriate. To this end, FORGE provides microloans, educational sponsorship, and social-entrepreneurship opportunities to refugees with a vision for improving their communities. Additionally, FORGE manages 32 refugee-run development projects including libraries, computer centers, preschools, health education programs, a refugee-rights advocacy center, arts & music programs, and adult education programs.

FORGE works with over 50,000 refugee men, women, and children from the DR Congo, Angola, Rwanda, Burundi, and Sudan in three UN-managed camps in Zambia.

www.FORGEnow.org

Project Description

For the fourth year in a row, Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA is serving with Touch the World Ministries, based out of Allendale, NJ to bring a team of students to Juarez, Mexico as an alternative spring break trip. We will continue on the final stages of construction on a school that was begun in 2005. Over 100 Mexican children are being sponsored by families in the US for $30 a month, an unthinkable price for such a poverty-stricken community. This community of Felipe Angeles used to be a garbage dump, and the families there have built their homes out of whatever they could find. This year, our team will be working with the families in support of the school to improve their homes and break through poverty. We have formed lasting relationships with the children there, even though they only speak Spanish, and most of us do not. By breaking down the language barrier, we have learned to communicate with love to children starved for attention. This Christian school has increased the faith of everyone in the community and the improvements each year are astounding. We need to raise $450 each plus plane tickets, but we have faith that we can do it, though we'll need all the help we can get. We know that we've been blessed with so much, and we have to give back that much more.

Project Description

The Sadhana Clean Water Project is addressing the obstacles to clean water access in rural India. With 1.25 billion people, India has the second largest global population. 226 million of these people do not have access to safe water. In the state of Maharastra in western India, and the site for our conference, approximately 700,000 people contract water-related diseases annually. The problem of clean water access is further exacerbated by competition for the limited supplies available. Demand for water in India is expected to double by 2025. Our project is a community-based effort exploring possible solutions with local NGOs and communities to improve the conditions of safe and sustainable water access. We are doing this with a two-pronged approach:

1. An Appropriate Technology (AT) Study Group with India’s Sadhana Village NGO and United World College (UWC). More >>
2. The Safe and Sustainable Water Conference we are hosting in Mumbai, India on 19 March 2007. More >>

Project Description

Cooperate Community Service

Cooperate Community service is basically a program that brings together major business companies, undergraduate/graduate scholars and community social services together.

How we are able to do this it through establishing networking, reforms and implementation.

Networking effect in Cooperate Community Service Program:

2. Networking would cut down financial expense. By using academic all qualifies individuals to assist in making the program more professional, efficient and effective as the undergraduates/graduates still has explore their lines of expertise but in affiliation with community social services.

Networking benefits in major companies.

The networking program benefits companies because they will be able:
1. To get ideas/innovations.
2. Cut down costs in marketing allowing the company to save: by not been legal bound to facilitate an individual through benefits or compensation amongst many other business related expense that deal with employee.

Networking benefits to community NGO/ undergraduates/graduates

The networking program benefits to community NGO would be:
1. Establishment of professionalisms in our community social services,through the assistance of graduate and undergraduate scholars volunteering in social community services.

Reform effects on the cooperate community service program:

This program will bring change in job qualification for undergraduates/graduates, change major companies perception of the potential in our communities, and change our community social services, by showing that several areas have not been exploited.

The benefit of reform in the business World

1. Cut down on financial cost on: compensation and Ideas/ Invocations.
2. Change global view on where they can find potential.
3. Change major companies views on just seeking individuals that are academically qualified through their years of schooling have not done anything to cause change in their line of expertise in collaboration with the community.
4. The Cooperate Community Social Service Program will cause change in companies’ viewpoint on our communities potential.

The reform in the Community Services

The reform in the community social services would be to create a positive financal, potential and professional level of expectations in what they do:

1. Increase of educated individuals that will promote professionalism in community services.
2. A financial benefit by using the cooperate community service to establish more donors.
3. Change in seen the amount of potential in our community social services that have not been exploited even around our communities.

Reforms benefit to our undergraduates/graduates

The program will cause reform for our undergraduate/graduate around our society because it will allow them to see:

1. The potential in working for our community even as they pursue their academicals qualification only at their cost of knowledge.
2. Meanings to exploit that potential.

What makes the program stand out from several of the community programs is the manner in which it will be able to collaborate the business world, community services, and the youth our feature successors, while still creating funds .This would be possible through implementation.

This implementation would directly benefit the business world, community services and youth been undergraduate/graduate.

To recap the Cooperate Community Social Services is a program built on, Networking, Reform, Potential, and lastly change Implementation.