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Lotus Outreach eNews - Issue #33
09/29/2011
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Lotus Outreach Invited to Compete to Become a Girl Effect Fund Partner!
It’s every nonprofit’s dream come true: to be featured by an international powerhouse dedicated to beating poverty by empowering girls. The Girl Effect, a movement created by the Nike and Novo Foundations, has teamed up with the online philanthropic marketplace GlobalGiving to launch a fundraising challenge for organizations capitalizing on the power of females for sustainable development.
The twelve projects to edge out the competition in the challenge will be spotlighted on the Girl Effect’s GlobalGiving fundraising page for one full year, granting what for many of them will be unprecedented exposure to tens of thousands of new donors.
Lotus Outreach is excited to share that we have already made the first cut! We thought our Blossom Bus project was a good fit for the challenge, and Girl Effect agreed.
Here’s the catch: it will take your support to carry us the rest of the way.
Spots will be given to six projects that attract the largest number of unique donors, and the next six will be selected based on innovation and impact. We want to secure our place among the first set, which means that once the contest opens on October 15, we need YOU to rally your friends and family to donate to the Blossom Bus!
The Challenge will remain open for one month until November 15, and with so many worthy causes participating, the competition will be tough. Our goal is to get as many people as possible to donate $10 (GlobalGiving’s minimum donation) during the month-long challenge.
We will keep you posted on our progress, and also provide you with tools for fundraising and social sharing as the challenge approaches.
The Girl Effect Fund has raised over $660,000 on GlobalGiving to date. If we are victorious in becoming a Girl Effect partner, LO can make high school diplomas the norm for young women in Mewat, and turn the 2% female literacy statistic in this region on its head. Help us make history!
Watch this inspiring three minute video to learn about the power of the Girl Effect
August 2011 Annual General Meeting Underscores LO's Expansion and Growth
Lotus Outreach's global staff and board members came together in August 2011 for the first time in three years. |
Attendees traveled from far and wide to make this year’s annual general meeting in Los Angeles happen – an event marking the first opportunity of many of Lotus Outreach’s key players to meet in person. Board members, our Chairman Khyentse Norbu, staff and supporters hailed from Colorado, Northern California, Chicago, Nova Scotia, San Diego and Vancouver, but the prize for the longest journey went to our Director of Field Operations, Mr. Glenn Fawcett, who flew in from New Delhi, India.
“Although it's great that we take advantage of technology to reduce our costs, it is invaluable, even indispensable, for us to all see each other in person!” says Board Member Germaine Hoston. “It really reinforces our commitment to LO by strengthening the ties among us. It's so nice to be able to imagine faces, even when communicating via e-mail.”
Treasurer Ed Malley opened the August 16 assembly with an encouraging look at LO’s financial history: revenues have nearly tripled over three years from $177,757 in 2008 to $527,550 in 2011. Contributions through grants have increased by a factor of six in the same period, now accounting for more than half of our revenue. What’s more, a far greater portion of our monies are going to program funding, with 82 percent directly benefitting our projects.
Lotus Outreach Chairman Khyentse Norbu with Director of Field Operations Glenn Fawcett |
Mr. Fawcett brought us up to speed on the 14 projects LO is currently overseeing across India and Cambodia, noting astonishing accomplishments like the delivery of 36,000kg of rice support to the families of our vulnerable female scholars in Cambodia this year alone, the drilling of eight wells to provide clean water to 1,800 Cambodian villagers, and the expansion of our incredible education advocacy program from 170 to 270 villages in rural India.
Our public relations committee also shared important updates. In addition to shaping a calendar for regular press releases and helping to hone that strategy, Board Member Michaela Haas caught the eye of the Huffington Post and earned a blog on their website. This welcome addition to our nascent social media sphere offers a grand platform on which to discuss both our work and the issues we care about. Finally, President Patty Waltcher introduced two new board nominees, Jody Lippman and Julie Chender.
All present agreed that the gathering, which took place over three days as committees met prior to the general meeting, was a precious and rejuvenating experience. “Meeting Glenn and listening to his reports in person was a highlight for me,” says Agam Patel, LO’s executive secretary. “I have worked with him for over three years, but had never met him personally. He is a true gem, and his passion in inspiring!”
“The meeting has been an energy booster for me,” says Jacqueline Chow, president of LO Society Canada. “Working as a Canadian non-profit charity independent of the international affiliation can be lonesome and overwhelming at times. To have the opportunity to meet and feed on the passion and vitality of everyone present is an injection of vigour and drive.”
Our time together in Los Angeles came to a close with the prospect of our next reunion – a planned exposure trip to Cambodia early in early 2012.
Volunteer Spotlight: Public Relations Consultant Krista Lundgren Keeps Her Bond With Cambodia Alive Through Lotus Outreach
Krista Lundgren (center) with Mia West and Holly Hitchcock of West PR |
When Krista Lundgren sensed she needed a career change a few years ago, she did it with a bang, embarking on an adventure most of us will only ever marvel at. She quit her job and took a year to travel the globe, visiting 81 cities in 16 countries on three continents with a good friend and the man she married last month (congratulations!). Two years of planning and saving preceded the trip, and finally a friend’s June 2008 wedding in Cancun provided the perfect excuse to kick it off.
By the fall of that year, Krista and her companions had blazed through South America and were navigating the exotic cities of Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia. “This is where my love for Cambodia and Southeast Asia began,” says Krista. “Cambodia and its people blew me away! When walking around, it was crazy to realize that anyone over the age of 30 had lived through the Khmer Rouge massacres. Yet everyone was so happy … the resilient spirit of the Cambodians was inspiring. I can't really explain why exactly I loved Cambodia so much. It was just a feeling that overcame me when I was there and I knew that I wanted to help their cause in some way when I returned.”
Krista and her (now husband) Jeff at Angkor Thom, Cambodia in 2008 |
What Krista found first, though, was her current job with West Public Relations, a fresh young PR firm in San Diego where she manages accounts for beauty and lifestyle companies like PETCO, Eufora and ANSR. It wasn’t until she heard about LO’s fundraiser at the Bar Method studio that Krista found her link back to the people of Cambodia.
“I reached out to see if there was any way I could help and was offered a position volunteering on the PR committee. I love the work LO does in both Cambodia and India, as I feel it is very important to help empower women all over the globe and help those who sometimes cannot help themselves. I vow to return to Cambodia some day so I can learn more about the people and culture I fell in love with three years ago.”
It’s been a happy partnership ever since. Krista has been a dedicated volunteer, scouring her PR databases to her to find promising targets for our press releases, advising our social media campaign as well as our overall PR strategy. There’s no doubt that she is as much an asset to us as we are to her.
“Honestly, I wish I could do more,” says Krista. “I know how fortunate I am to have been given a good education and to have the opportunities I have because I live in America. It sounds silly because I know it's unrealistic, but I wish I had the means to help everyone.”
Krista has become an invaluable asset in our campaign to spread the word about the communities we serve. Please join us in thanking her for sharing her time, energy and talent with Lotus Outreach.
Demand for Blossom Bus Spreads Across Mewat, India
Mankaki village head (standing) and "Uncle" Suraj |
Earlier this month we met with our 58 Blossom Bus riders, their parents and the heads of five villages at Mankaki school in Hathin block, Mewat for a community Sports Day to celebrate the impact of education. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate and the sports activities were rained out, but those present took the opportunity to gather and discuss the wonderful benefit of the Blossom Bus project and their hopes for the future of girls’ education in Mewat.
The families told us that the Blossom Bus is now well known throughout Mewat, and it would easily be filled by girls from every village if we could meet the demand. The village head of Mankaki shared his gratitude for what he called a “trend-setter service” which he believes will change the face of Mewat. (Mankaki is the home of our beneficiary Anjum, who wrote a stunning manifesto of girl’s rights a few months ago.)
Parents and village heads alike spoke about how important the project is for girls who never thought they would go to school past grade 8, since parents consider it unsafe for their daughters to walk four to five kilometers to neighboring villages where the only secondary schools are available. Project Manager Suraj Kumar (affectionately called “Uncle” in the villages) acknowledged the support of all the villagers, and thanked them for the tremendous faith and trust they showed in our staff.
Suraj with the trailblazing young women of the Blossom Bus |
Suraj also took the opportunity to discuss more broadly the Right to Education Act, effective April 1, 2010, which guarantees free quality education for all Indian children up to grade 8. He asked those present to raise demand for school transport, which should rightly be provided by the government to girls so that their right to education can be realized.
This fall, with support from the Angus Lawson Memorial Trust, we will be expanding the bus transportation to a total of 100 young women across five bus lines so they can attend secondary school. The villagers and Blossom Bus riders confirmed that girls now studying in grades 9 and 10 are the first girls in their villages to reach these grades – and that prior to the project they could not have achieved this dream in a district which posted a 2 percent female literacy rate in India's 2001 census.
The 58 Blossom Bus riders were given school bags and uniforms, as were 40 other girls from Mankaki village, to encourage their continued attendance. All children present were given sweets—a rare treat—as a token of appreciation for their participation. Our warmest and sincerest thanks to each and every one of you who have helped bring this remarkable project to life.
Use GoodSearch and Donate to Lotus Outreach Every Time You Browse the Internet!
It just keeps getting easier to earn free money for your favorite charity (and we hope that’s us!).
GoodSearch, the Yahoo-powered engine which donates money to the charity of your choice every time you conduct a web search, just made giving even easier, thanks to their IE, Firefox and Chrome compatible tool bar. Downloading the tool bar is easy -- just visit http://www.goodsearch.com/toolbar/ and select the browser of your choice then follow the instructions.
Once you’ve selected LO as your charity of choice, GoodSearch donates one penny every time you search with it. That may not sound like a lot, but with thousands of supporters that search the web every day, those pennies add up. If each of our newsletter readers, for example, pledged to use GoodSearch five times a day, LO would get over $36,000 annually—enough to support college tuition and living expenses for 36 young women in Cambodia for an entire year!
If you would rather not install the toolbar, you can still access the search engine by typing Goodsearch.com into your browser and entering “Lotus Outreach” in the bar that says “enter your favorite charity or school here.” You can also register with GoodSearch, if you’d like to track your earnings for LO.
Questions? Please drop us a note at info@lotusoutreach.org. And be sure to share the news about this wonderful tool with your social networks!