Wordless Wednesday

Humanitarian Work as a Career

A few weeks ago I was talking to a woman who was asking me about my schooling. The conversation took the usual course one takes when talking to a university student:

Woman: What are you majoring in?

Me: I’m an English major.

A moment’s pause as she takes that information in . . .

Woman: Oh, so do you want to teach?

The typical response to “English major,” that, or a lament to this effect: “Oh, my niece was an English major as well, but she’s not interested in teaching, so now she has nothing to do with
all that schooling!!! . . . What do you want to do with it?”

Me: No, I don’t think I’ll teach, right now I’m planning on grad school so that I can go into
non-profit humanitarian work.

At this point people usually become very interested and the conversation progresses nicely, but this woman caught me off guard . . .

Woman: (blank look on her face) Oh, so what do you want to do with that?

Me: (bewildered) Um, humanitarian work . . . ?

Woman: (nods her head . . . still not comprehending) Okay, so . . . what do you
do with that?

Although humanitarian work has been around for quite some time, the idea behind it has become popular in recent years with help from big name celebrities such as Angelina Jolie, Oprah, Nichole Kidman, and George Clooney who have brought awareness to many issues affecting the world’s people today. But despite all the media attention, under the layers of “coolness” and the fact that humanitarian work is “in” right now, there is a community of people working together to make a difference in the lives of others.

My conversation with this woman gave me the opportunity to stop and consider what you “do” with humanitarian work. Being in the middle of it all, sometimes it’s easy to loose focus on the big picture while so many other details demand your attention. Humanitarian work needs to be a partnership. It’s all too easy for people to donate and see immediate results without realizing the damage they are creating for the future. This is one of the reasons I was so excited to find ASCEND, because it is a partnership that enables others to make the difference in their own lives and thus bring about a greater change for the future.

Written by McKenzie Hansen
ASCEND Alliance Intern

Wordless Wednesday

Collaboration

One the things I'm trying to do during my internship here is find out what other Simple Technologies (also called appropriate technologies) have been developed by other NGOs. I have been supprised by the number of organizations out there with similar goals that have developed technologies, but I'm even more supprised at the lack of collaboration. With so many groups working on similar problems (clean water, sanitation, gardening etc.) I haven't found a great location for collaborating on inovations. It strikes me that collaboration is used for huge projects like open office and firefox but not for simple technologies like wells. For example today I came accross a website for Gaviotas a sef sustained village in colombia http://www.friendsofgaviotas.org/Innovation/Innovation.html they have plans for a pump and windmill that were both developed for their village. Its nice that they haven't pattented their designs so anyone can use them but the resource is only 2 of the many technologies that have been developed there. I also found Practical Action http://practicalaction.org/practicalanswers/product_info.php?cPath=22&products_id=168 It includes a lot more information on many different technologies so its a pretty good resource, but the key component, collaboration isn't there. Then I came accross Appropedia http://www.appropedia.org/Welcome_to_Appropedia its a huge seachable database and best of all-its a wiki-so if it doesn't have the information I want I can add it. And if each user will update the wiki based on their experience with simple technologies it will keep getting better. The only thing that I think it lacks is the step by step instructions that practiacal action has, but this can be overcome by me or any other user by inserting links or instructions. I love it.

We need your Artistic Eye

Every year at Ascend we hold a fundraising Gala. This year it's on Friday September 25. It's a pretty fancy-pantsy event. We hold it at the Grand America in Salt Lake City. We have a live and silent auction where we auction off really cool things like trips to the Cayman Islands. This year we're auctioning off a car courtesy of the amazing folk at Young Chevrolet (who really are as nice as pie). Things are coming together nicely for the gala. This year we're going to deck out part of the ballroom so that it looks like a market in South America and you'll wander through the stalls looking at displays about what we do and looking at trinkets for sale. The amazing people at 10,000 villages are going to come and set up shop in some of the stalls. It's going to be a great night and here at the office we're heavy in preparations.

Now, down to business. We're designing the programs and invitations and we're looking for a great piece of artwork to put on the cover. The people at 10,000 villages have agreed to donate a piece. I've scoured their website with a couple of interns and here are some of the pieces we think might work best.


1) Circle of Life Candle Holder


2) Tree of Life Tapestry


3) Circle Dance Sculpture

4) Peruvian Musician Tapestry

So what do you think? If you had to pick a piece of artwork to inspire people to be part of development in Africa and South America which would you pick? Please leave a comment and vote for your favorite (you can also go to the 10,000 villages website and propose your own best option.) We have to pick by July 28th so get your vote in as quickly as possible.

Wordless Wednesday

Run run as fast as you can....

Today two volunteers came in. Matt and Jake Cowden. They are just the darling kind of 16-year old that you want your child to turn into. When I asked who wanted to do a writing project Jake quickly responded, "Matt will probably be better at that." So I let Matt write a blog entry and press release while Jake did some data entry. I'm hoping Jake comes back (he assured me that he didn't hate me too much after the assignment and would be back Wednesday). So Matt was left to introduce them. Here's what he wrote.

My name is Matt Cowden. I am 16 years old and go to Cottonwood High School; Go Colts! I am not an intern, although that is something that would be a great opportunity someday. I am writing here because my twin brother Jake and I are doing our Eagle Scout Project though Ascend Alliance.

When my brother and I first started talking about possible projects, we knew that we wanted to do something big. We didn't want to do a project that barely filled the required hours and required little planning. We wanted to do something that would make a big difference. It had to require months of preparation and work. We decided we would do a 5K race to help build a school in Ethiopia with Ascend Alliance.

Our mom is the person who told us about Ascend. She has worked with them in the past and has gone on several expeditions. She explained to us how Ascend strives to make the world a better place by helping all their beneficiaries become self-reliant. She told us about the work they have done and we knew that they would be able to help us accomplish our goals.

When we first came up with the idea a few people told us that it would be too hard. It has been plenty hard; but that's the kind of project we wanted. First we had to make sure that the police were willing to block off any roads that might need to be blocked off. We decided the mayor of Holladay, Utah would be the best person to talk to first about this problem. He was very nice and seemed really excited. He immediately called the police chief and said the city of Holladay would cover any overtime necessary for blocking roads.

We spend hours on google earth trying to come up with a reasonable rout but we couldn't find anything that worked. Luckily Kris Erickson who is the race director for Heart of Holladay was generous enough to let us use her course. The police chief and fire department agreed (the fire department even volunteered to have an EMT on site). Everyone's willingness to help has made this part of the planning as easy as possible.

What wasn't easy was getting insurance. Our mother (who by the way is the best mom ever) made countless phone calls to insurance companies and lawyers trying to figure out how we could get insurance to cover an entire race. After months of tyring to track someone down we finally ended up turning back to Kris who helped us get insured and certified by USA Track and Field.

The race will be on July 18th at 8:00 am. I made arrangements for our race to be advertised at races that took place over the holiday weekend and now we're just advertising and trying to get people to sign up. You can sign up and download a flier on our blog mattandjakes5krun.blogspot.com. If you can't come to the race but would like to donate or be a sponsor, we would appreciate anything you can do a lot. No am mount is too small, we will accept anything. If you have any questions about the race please contact me or my brother at mattandjakecowden{at}gmail{dot}com.

So what do you say people? Can you tell others about this race and help out a couple of boys trying to get their eagle scout project finished? Trying to build a school for kids in Africa? Please do. I thought this picture of one of our volunteers outside a school in Ethiopia might inspire you to help. Sweater it is...Sweater it is.

Funding for Nonprofits

My first month with Ascend has been an eye-opener for me. Not only have I learned a ton about what it takes to run a non-profit, I have also corresponded with the majority of our field staff and read many fascinating blogs about the current state of other humanitarian efforts.

One of the biggest realizations I have made about running a non-profit is that despite the label, we are still very dependent on generating revenue. It is evident that Ascend Alliance is engaged in what is called “social entrepreneurship”. What this means is that we recognize a social problem and use entrepreneurship to make social change. In order to do this, we are constantly coming up with new ways to make money besides accepting donations. What we are doing is providing real value to people or organizations/people in exchange for their money (i.e. expeditions, sponsorships). Finding new ways to make money will be the lifeblood of this organization and rethinking the traditional approach to funding a non-profit is what makes and will continue to make Ascend Alliance a world-class organization.

Besides observing and absorbing, I have been engaged in putting together in-country staff reports (and photos) for all of the foreign countries in which Ascend operates. In order to do this, I have been in direct contact with almost every member of our foreign staff using either email or Skype. It has truly amazed me the caliber of people that we employ in our operations. These are well-educated people with long lists of applicable experience relevant towards furthering our mission. Along with this, they are very personable, cooperative and serious about their work. It has been a pleasure to work with them.

Part of our assignment for HQ interns is to find and comment on humanitarian blogs that write about issues that are applicable to our line of work. This has led me to the discovery of many interesting articles over the past month and increased my awareness of what type of humanitarian work is being done today and what are the principles behind this type of work. I feel like our networking efforts will start to pay off soon enough as we are beginning to build relationships with other serious humanitarians that are out there. I look forward to another exciting month with Ascend!

Written by Tim Marti
ASCEND Alliance Intern

Growing Gardens in Ecuador