Gather Fellows Learn About Grassroots Fundraising
On February 5, members of the inaugural class of GATHER Fellows who graduated from the course last November met for the first session of a series of virtual trainings about topics they would like to learn about as alumni. There has been overwhelming interest in learning more about several topics, with fundraising standing out as a priority.
The call lasted two hours, in part because the GATHER fellows, dispersed around the world, were truly excited to reconvene and share updates on their work. It was clear how much the GATHER course influenced their lives. Two people have left their jobs since graduation to focus full time on community initiatives, inspired by their work in the GATHER course. Another fellow, Cynthia Austin from San Diego, shared that the community visioning summit she hosted as part of the course led to a new framing of the voices that are part of the discourse on sex trafficking in her circles and that no less than five new organizations are starting up, under Cynthia’s stewardship, led by women survivors. Daniel Tillas from Port au Prince, Haiti, spoke about the Wealth of Waste, a program he began to employ members of his community to collect garbage with support from an Indiegogo campaign he launched as one of the final phases of GATHER last fall. He said the only downside is now he’s known as “the Trash Man.”
After all the fellows shared their updates, we moved into the fundraising training, led by Goldin Institute Senior Advisor Jimmie Briggs. Jimmie started the session by defining the differences between fundraising and development. Development is building the capacity of an organization and engaging in activities to build support that are not directly fundraising, whereas fundraising is asking for or applying for funding or in-kind services.
Fellows chimed in on the importance of development for fundraising and some spoke about their strategic plans, including fundraising.
Next Jimmie moved into a presentation of budgeting techniques. Fellows discussed how developing a budget is really the first step in fundraising, so that you know what you need and what you are asking for financially when asking for support.
In discussing “the Case for Support,” Dieudonne Allo from South Africa made the prudent comment that “Donors look at thousands of applications. You need to say why they should fund your proposal by expressing the importance and urgency of the problem you are trying to address.” He sagely added, “You can have a great project or program but without a good case for support, it won’t be funded.” Other fellows agreed.
The workshop covered different sources of funding available to grassroots social entrepreneurs as well as the importance of diversified funding. We discussed the pros and cons of: Independent Foundations, Companies and Corporations, Individual Donors, Local/Grassroots Resources (i.e. Rotary Clubs), Crowdsourced Funding, and Government Aid Agencies and Embassies. Daniel Tillas, who exceeded his fundraising goal for the Wealth of Waste Indiegogo campaign, shared with the group the creative and strategic efforts that led to his success. He discussed his campaign with influential leaders including teachers and other school officials, as well as people he knew who had visited Haiti, and asked them to share the campaign. This led to many donations beyond Daniel’s immediate network. He also talked about getting a base of support before taking the campaign public.
“People like to give to things that already have support,” Daniel said.
He also spoke about the importance of updating your audience and using the momentum inherent in a campaign to promote donations - i.e. we have raised X of our goal and only have Y more to raise, or there are only x days left to contribute to this important project.
We spent some time talking about cultivation of donors and especially how to thank them for their contributions. Geoffrey Omony of YOLRED shared a video he made for one individual supporter which inspired other fellows to do the same.
At the end of the call, there were some noteworthy questions and exchanges. Dieudonne commented on how hard it really is for organizations without a track record of support to raise money and asked how to deal with that challenge. We all acknowledged this issue for this particular group of fellows. Then, Cynthia, who has started several grassroots initiatives, offered to lead a follow-up session on how to deal with such problems by strategies like building an advisory board that can lead to credibility and funding, among other ideas. Goldin Institute staff agreed to build a toolkit including Cynthia’s ideas for this and future classes of fellows to use to support their fundraising efforts.
Reflections on the 2010 Earthquake in Haiti
At 4:53 pm, January 12, 2010 an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 on the Richter scale struck the island of Hispaniola, comprising the two nations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, 15 miles southwest of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince.
“In ten seconds, everything the population took decades to build was destroyed,” recalled Goldin Institute Global Associate Malya Villard Appolon, co-founder of KOFAVIV (Commission of Women Victims for Victims). With additional damage from two aftershocks hours later, some three million people were impacted, one-third of the Haitian population. Over a million people were displaced as their homes were destroyed and between 85,000 and 316,000 were killed, based on varying estimates offered by USAID and the Haitian government with international relief agencies.
Reflecting on the recently passed ninth anniversary of the 2010 earthquake, Malya recalled, “On that day, nobody had a roof on top of their head. Everybody took refuge on the streets and parks, which caused what we called ‘the camp phenomenon’ and led to women enduring inhuman and degrading conditions. At that time, basic services were non-existent, insecurity was the norm, and women faced very difficult situations.” Assisted by the Goldin Institute as well as various international NGOs, Malya and her colleagues at KOFAVIV not only provided basic reproductive and medical assistance to displaced female survivors of sexual assault and rape, but also trained male allies to be guardians of women and girls at risk of gender-based violence.
The months and years since the earthquake have seen additional disasters, natural as well as man-made. In October of the same year as the earthquake, Haiti was hit by a cholera epidemic following the discovery of cases in the areas around the Artibonite River, the longest in the country and a major source of drinking water. Identified as a South Asian strain of the cholera bacteria, the disease was quickly traced to Nepalese soldiers who were stationed in Haiti as peacekeepers at that time. Before the epidemic could be mitigated, 770,000 Haitians were sickened and 9,200 died.
Two years later, Hurricane Sandy inflicted further physical damage on the island of Hispaniola, setting Haiti even further back on its slow march toward rehabilitation. Then last February, an internal investigation by Oxfam UK was made public, revealing systemic, widespread use of sex workers - many underage - by Oxfam foreign staff since the 2010 earthquake.
Despite the loss of their physical offices due to insecurity and death threats, the volunteers of KOFAVIV and the women they serve endure and persist. Exiled to the United States, Malya’s dedication and connection to the KOFAVIV community is unwavering.
“Even after nine years of these unfortunate events, the situation in Haiti remains the same,” she observed. “The consequences of the earthquake continue to haunt women. Their misery is not over. Even today, they are homeless and their safety is more at stake. They are raped every day.”
Celebrating the Graduation of the Gather Fellows
Twenty grassroots leaders from 16 countries around the world celebrated their graduation from the first class of Goldin Institute’s GATHER Fellows program on November 8th hosted by Board Member Mimi Frankel.
GATHER graduate Raymond Richard, founder of Brothers Standing Together, the Chicago-based anti-violence non-profit, attended the celebration on a rooftop venue overlooking Lake Michigan. ‘Brother Ray,’ as he is best known, communicated throughout the evening with other fellows online as he has throughout the four-month GATHER program. His colleagues participated in their respective regions across the globe in an innovative live broadcast of the graduation event.
Made possible by a new tablet-based online capacity-building curriculum that combines shared learning, local practice and robust reflection amongst the Fellows, GATHER’s inaugural participants have learned and worked together over the last 16 weeks. The highly diverse inaugural class included the manager of an orphanage in Kenya; a peace and reconciliation advocate in Colombia; a spokesperson for survivors of sexual violence in Kentucky; and a young lawyer in Puntland, Somalia. Throughout the course, these grassroots leaders engaged their respective communities in identifying existing assets, and built the personal capacities they need to design community-driven approaches to address local challenges. Both the software and core exercises were developed by Goldin Institute executive director Travis Rejman informed by 16 years of collaboration with a global network of grassroots leaders.
[quote]In many ways, Gather is the culmination of the last 16 years of experience gained by partnering with grassroots leaders and their communities across the globe. Literally thousands of conversations with community leaders from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, the streets of Port au Prince to the Boardrooms of international agencies, have informed the curriculum and improved the platform. -- Travis Rejman[/quote]
President of the Education for Change Association in Romania, Laura Molnar, summarized the GATHER Fellows’ sentiments when she shared:
[quote]It’s a joy and an honor to graduate GATHER – Goldin Institute, a high-quality course, with a real capacity to transform and empower global community leaders. Grateful to be part of a community of wonderful and inspiring people who are not afraid to dream and to work hard for making dreams become true. -- Laura Molnar, GATHER Fellow, Romania [/quote]
Dieudonne Allo, founder and CEO of the Global Leading Light Initiatives in Eastern Cape, South Africa added:
[quote]Today is a historic day for you at the Goldin institute, but it is also a historic day for me and Global Leading Light Initiatives. Thank you for empowering my community through me. I have learned (and applied) so much from Gather's unique curriculum and in the process, been greatly inspired your organisational culture. Community-driven leadership isn't just something Gather taught me about, but it made me see how it is practised. As leader of a nascent organization, trying to build an organisational culture, this was a very process for me. -- Dieudonne Allo, GATHER Fellow, South Africa [/quote]
As the final assignment in the GATHER course, Fellows crafted Indiegogo campaigns to invite local and global support for the projects they created with their communities over the last four months. These projects are built on the core principles of the course which include building on the assets that already exist and making sure that those people most impacted by local challenges are part of the team designing the solution.
We invite you to learn more about these inspiring campaigns by visiting the GATHER Fellows collection on Indiegogo.
Goldin Institute Advisory Board Member Mimi Frankel, hosted last night’s event, and saluted the graduating cohort as well as the Goldin Institute staff members. “I consider it a privilege and an honor to present the First GATHER graduating class,” Mimi explained. “It’s an extraordinary program.”
In welcoming the participants who joined us to celebrate the graduation in Chicago, Goldin Institute Founder and Board Chair Diane Goldin toasted the dedication and assiduity of the entire Goldin community:
[quote]“This GATHER graduation is a celebration of our Fellows who represent the heart of our mission. I couldn't be more proud of them and the team that made it all possible". -- Diane Goldin, Founder and Board Chair[/quote]
Deborah Bennett, a Senior Program Officer at the Polk Bros. Foundation was likewise elated and impressed by what she saw at the graduation event. Beginning early next year, the Goldin Institute is working with the Conant Family Foundation in partnership with the Polk Brothers Foundation and many other Chicago-based philanthropies to create a new GATHER class for grantees of the Partnership for Safe and Peaceful Communities:
[quote]“I’m so inspired by the asset-based approach to working with grassroots organizations,” Bennett explained. The people most impacted should always guide the solutions, and I’m excited for what we can do to reduce gun violence in Chicago. -- Deborah Bennett, Polk Brothers Foundation[/quote]
Jazz Legend Kahil El Zabar was invited to attend the GATHER graduation by the Goldin Institute’s Executive Director Travis Rejman, and commented that he was “intrigued” by the “collective of unique, innovative minds concerned with human need and real change – I find it inspiring.”
Seeking Peace from Somalia to Dharamshala
Meeting for the first time in Dharamshala, India over the course of seven days in October, I had the opportunity to meet Goldin Institute team member Jimmie Briggs with whom I shared the unique opportunity to not only be in intimate dialogue with Tibetan spiritual leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate the Dalai Lama, but be in community with nearly two dozen global youth peacemakers from around the world. The program which brought them together was the United States Institute of Peace’s (USIP) “Generation Change” initiative.
I was selected to participate as a grassroots youth leader based on my organizing work in Puntland, Somalia; while Jimmie attended as a mentor based on his past with the organization on the issue of child soldiers and SGBV (sexual and gender-based violence) against women and girls. In total, I was joined by 26 youth leaders from 14 countries spanning the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and South America.
Through a competitive call for online application to a youth exchange program for young peacebuilders from around conflict zones of the world, I was able to secure a position. I had high expectations for my trip to Dharamshala! I was very excited to meet with inspiring and courageous youth leaders from across the world to learn from them and see and hear their experiences in bringing peace and change within their communities.
Goldin Institute’s Jimmie Briggs was one of half a dozen mentors present throughout the trip, including accompanying the youth leader cohort to meet with the Dalai Lama, as well as participate in group exercises and workshops. As Jimmie told me:
[quote]In fact, I met His Holiness a number of years ago at a peace conference in Derry, Northern Ireland, but this was my first opportunity to actually sit and have a true conversation. It was definitely a memorable visit. -- Jimmie Briggs, Goldin Institute Director of Community Learning [/quote]
My trip to Dharamsala was another step taking me forward toward a bright future in my career and life. I hoped to meet with thought leaders who were source of wisdom and experts in building sustainable peace for communities and I did. To listen to their powerful, personal and professional experiences -- as well as the choices they have made -- met, exceeded and surpassed my expectations.
[quote]The Dalai Lama said to me that ‘Humans are social animals and everyone needs a community survive.’ This statement taught me the importance of building strong connections between active citizens of my community to unite their efforts and avoid conflict of interest between them. [/quote]
I was able to participate in this unique opportunity as the Chairperson of the Somali branch of the African Youth and Child Network for Human Rights (REJADH), but also as a participant in the inaugural class of GATHER Fellows. It was a whirlwind trip, as I graduated as a GATHER Fellow exactly two weeks after returning home from India. Without question, my experience with the Dalai Lama and fellow youth peacemakers in USIP’s Generation Change improves the project I developed through GATHER and deepens my commitment to work for peace.
This reaffirmed my strong believe towards the old saying “Your network is your net-worth.”
You can learn more about the project I am working on and get involved by visiting my Indiegogo campaign!
Gather Workshop: Build Your Leadership Skills
Grassroots leaders are invited to join us for a skill building workshop:
February 20th, 2019
2:30 - 4:00 PM
1543 West Division Street
2nd Floor
Chicago, IL 60610
This workshop will feature an opportunity to learn:
- How to identify and map assets that your community already has
- How to frame questions in ways that motivate action for the common good
- How to understand and mitigate the effects of group power imbalances
- How to create your own community of practice using the Gather Platform
GATHER is a mobile application for online learning that hosts curriculum built specifically for grassroots leadership development connecting leaders like you! This online platform offers unique capacities to learn and work together to develop the skills and tools needed to change your communities.
Click here to RSVP and save your space at the workshop.
If you have questions, please contact the workshop coordinator, Burrell Poe at burrell@goldininstitute.org or at 312-951-1691.
Nothing For Us Without Us
On the 3rd of October, 2018, we at Youth Leaders for Reconciliation and Development (YOLRED) hosted our community visioning summit, an important part of the Gather curriculum, which was attended by 56 community members from various categories including youths, older people, and local leaders.
During the sessions, participants were formed into four groups by Diana Opira Alaroker, a YOLRED staff member and also a Gather Fellow who served as facilitator, to give possibilities to everyone to discuss the community assets they have. The leaders from these groups later made a presentation based on their identified community assets and Diana presented a summary as well as shared with them the asset map.
I then took the participants through what adaptive challenges are, asked how do we as a community respond to such challenges as well as the opportunities and the vision for the future. Collectively, the participants identified land conflicts, alcoholism, their voices not being heard, stigmatization, and segregation of the former child soldiers and their children, laziness and corruption among others as being adaptive challenges. They noted, however, that taking a joint leadership and responsibility by every member of the community might provide answers to such challenges.
Looking into the opportunities and the vision for the future, the participants considered greatly exploiting and putting land into use as one of their most valuable assets and noted that this also will provide opportunities to employ the unemployed youth. Similarly, they also viewed the Village Saving and Loan Associations (VSLA) scheme as one way of improving their social cohesion and avoiding segregation since it brings people together and requires them to work together. This will improve their household income as well and put them in position to manage their basic needs and attain financial independence.
On speaking to 56 participants of the summit, the Hon. Susan Lapat, a community representative to the office of the Mayor, asked the participants to put into practice what they have learned, adding that this is an eye opener programming to the community that keeps the brain thinking. For long, people have had assets in their community unexploited and hence remained in their current situation. Consequently, she asked the members of the community to now start exploiting and putting into use the assets they have, including engaging the leaders, the Gather Fellows’ teams and other stakeholders in order to realize a joint community leadership towards achieving the change we want in our community. In the same way, the Chairman of Local Council 1 also asked the participants to embrace love and trust for one another so that they can realize the dreams of their shared aspirations as a community.
At the end, everyone was able to realize that “There is nothing for us without us.”
Geoffrey Omony serves as Executive Director of Youth Leaders for Restoration and Development (YOLRED), the first organization in Uganda designed and run by former child soldiers.
Going Big in South Africa
What a year! What a week! Two years ago, I set out on a crazy journey of helping African youths discover their light – their creative talents – and supporting them to shine this light by transforming their creative talents into solutions to critical challenges facing their communities. I founded an organization called Global Leading Light Initiatives, a grassroots initiative with a global focus in mind aimed at enhancing the capacities of youths to be real assets, and not liabilities, to their communities.
Two years on, with no funding, GLLI has been able to generate community impact which most million-Rand-funded organizations only dream of achieving. This achievement has been thanks to tens of passionate local and international volunteers who have been attracted by our work to give their time and other resources.
The Gather Course has made me understand how many assets I have and how I have been under-utilizing them. And so I decided to go big.
At the end of September, in collaboration with the Association of Universities in South Africa, our organization brought the 2018 National Entrepreneurship Week to our community. GLLI hosted the first Student Entrepreneurship Roadshow at Walter Sisulu University, featuring 3 of South Africa's hottest celebrities and officials from the Association of Universities of South Africa, headed by their CEO, Dr. Norah Clark.
Through this event, hundreds of emerging entrepreneurs from Walter Sisulu University and 6 high schools were inspired to create solutions to critical challenges. Students were offered great sponsorship opportunities to become innovative.
In mid-October, we finally we held our Community Visioning Summit! It was a wonderful day, with a total of 69 participants – 41 students, including 15 from Walter Sisulu University and 26 from 5 high schools in Mthatha as well as 28 adults, 1 official from the Department of Social Development, 8 teachers, 3 university lecturers, 4 social workers and 12 community members.
The youths taught us many things on that day and based on what we are seeing in our community, we can "Build prosperity on resources in which poor people are rich" i.e. their talents, skills, knowledge and culture.
The day after our Community Visioning Summit, I was invited by the department of education to make a presentation at a district teachers' workshop. A majority of high schools in Mthatha district were represented by a teacher at the workshop. I gave an overview of the Community Visioning Summit and shared the experiences with them. Most of the teachers were disappointed they couldn't make it.
I made a presentation about Iziko, our community and school-based parenting program aimed at building healthy child-adult relationships to support young people achieving their full potential.
It was a great honor. Many teachers want to join the "Iziko." They also want our student-entrepreneurship program in their schools.
Dieudonne Anumbosi Allo from the Eastern Cape in South Africa is the Founder and CEO of the Global Leading Light Initiatives, a registered non-profit organization formed in 2014 on a strong conviction that collective prosperity can be achieved in Africa and globally through coordinated grassroots initiatives aimed at creating nurturing and enabling environments for children and youths.
Welcome Jassi, Burrell, Abby, Oz and Delasha
Since last spring, the Goldin Institute has gratefully welcomed four new staff members and a research fellow to the organization’s community. All bring a rich diversity of experience working in development and aid work, as well as innovative storytelling and reconciliation.
Jassi Sandhar
A second year PhD student in International Human Rights Law at the University of Bristol, Jassi Sandhar spent nearly two months this summer working with our global partners in Uganda, YOLRED. With academic and field experience in child combatants and war-affected youth. Jassi worked closely with YOLRED program director Geoffrey Omony to capture the oral narratives of Northern Ugandan children impacted by the LRA war, and its legacies including housing instability, joblessness, hunger and insecurity. Additionally, she worked with Geoffrey, and GI staffer Jimmie Briggs to prepare and submit badly needed requests for operational funding to foundations and entities based in the United Kingdom. Though her tenure in the region ends in August, we’re excited to continue the working relationship with her as she completes her thesis on human rights, experiences, and legal protections offered to girl soldiers during and post-conflict.
Burrell Poe
A familiar face within the Goldin Institute constellation of stars, Burrell Poe joins the organization as a Curriculum Associate for Gather. The native of Chicago’s West Side community served in the United States Army for three years, returning in 2011 to undertake the ambitious charge of addressing city violence through what he’s coined as the “Compassion Project.” As he’s observed often at Institute events, and in-house meetings, “Statistically, I was safer on the battlefield in the Army than I was returning to my hometown. I wanted to change that narrative.”
Enrolling in a social entrepreneurship course at the “Social Academy,” Burrell met and studied with Sara Shairer who shared a vision of elevating and spreading the message of global compassion. Later receiving certification from Stanford University, he went on to work with the Institute for Nonviolence in Chicago, where he led circles, workshops and classes with the greater community on the uses of compassion as a force or transformative healing and change. “Statistics have shown that a small fraction of the Chicago population is responsible for violence,” he says, “and that is the population I work with. When compassion is enacted through personal behavior, it changes how we interact with others. A compassionate community will thrive, and I believe that we can use compassion to rebuild a thriving Chicago.”
Abby Goldberg
Alongside Jimmie Briggs in our New York- based team -- through whom she was introduced to the Goldin Institute -- Abby Goldberg carries nearly 20 years of domestic and global experience working in the areas of gender rights, media advocacy, and non-profit development. The San Francisco native is the Senior Advisor for Gather, and a recognized expert in digital advocacy and social media campaigning.
The majority of her career has been leading the transformational growth and development of three very distinct, non-profit organizations including the Global Justice Center, Digital Democracy, and the New Media Advocacy Project. Over the course of her professional journey, Abby has learned and mastered the use of technology and digital video to promote tactical change in policy and law based, producing more than two dozen video shorts. Her most recent digital campaign, “We Have Rights: Immigrant Empowerment Campaign,” consisted of a coalition of over 200 organizations responding to the increase of arrests and deportations of immigrants in the U.S.
An ongoing project in development, “Intercambio,” is a series by and for Cubans and Americans to foster greater connection and cultural respect between the two.
Delasha Long
Newsletter readers will remember hearing about Delasha Long as part of the team that presented Gather at the Conference on Community Writing last year. Delasha is a Web Content Specialist with a background in content strategy, production, design, and management. She got her start in literary publishing, and hopes to use her talents in both print and digital media. Through a partnership with DePaul University, Delasha provides content strategy and research for the Gather Platform, currently assisting with the UX design, technical support, social media, and technical writing. A Graduate Assistant with the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Discourse at DePaul, she works as the standing Journal Manager and upcoming Assistant Production and Design Manager for the Community Literacy Journal.
Oz Ozburn
Oz Ozburn brings her planning and design skills to support all aspects of the work of the Goldin Institute. As an architect, Oz is experienced in deep listening and research to uncover opportunities to solve tough challenges through thoughtful design and skillful implementation. Interested in how design innovation can tackle rural economic development, Oz founded Design Ecology to pursue a different type of project design that strives to find holistic solutions to issues involving urbanism, physical place-making, and gaps in rural fabric caused by social inequalities. Prior to joining the Goldin Institute, Oz was Project Architect for Studio Gang, leading project that focused on creating social change while fostering environmental stewardship. Oz graduated with her Bachelors of Science from the University of Virginia and a Masters of Architecture from Yale University, where she was awarded a travel grant, allowing her to research firsthand the architectural consequences of urban warfare and publish a study on the cultural forms of post-traumatic reconstruction in Nicosia and Beirut.
Looking Ahead
With the recent, successful launch of the Gather platform in the pilot phase, we are excited to have extended our capacity, and depth of talents, with the arrival of these three dynamic people, and expect greater impact and recognition for the work of the organization and the global partners whom it serves.
Global Associate Helps Craft Bangsamoro Organic Law
Dear Friends:
Warm greetings from Manila!
I am thrilled to announce that on July 26, President Rodrigo Duterte signed the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL).
The BOL will address Muslim Filipinos’ decades-long struggle for self-determination, and is the result of a long peace-building process in which we are very proud to have played a role. The Goldin Institute Philippines has worked hard for a number of years to establish trust between former combatants by working directly with communities in our home province of Manguindanao, a section of the island of Mindanao that has a mixed population including Muslims and Christians, and a long history of violent insurgency. Now that the BOL has been signed into law, it will hopefully be ratified in a plebiscite, and then the rebel groups will participate in more work on peacebuilding and conflict transformation to improve their quality of life and become productive members of their communities.
I have been honored to play a personal role in the peace process for more than a year as a commissioner of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission. Being one of the Christian members of this 21-member panel was a great challenge but it also has been deeply rewarding. I was selected for this role because of my advocacy for people at the grassroots as a Goldin Institute Global Associate and because my colleagues and contacts at Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) nominated me for this position.
We in the Goldin Institute Philippines created a coalition of members of civil society, non-governmental organizations, the military, armed guerillas and parents to support initiatives such as Access to Clean Water Project, through which we installed pumping units at over 100 schools to provide safe water to over 40,000 students. As in many places around the world, access to safe water is a major issue in our region, and it is all the more challenging to install these pumps in areas where military operations were ongoing as well as flooding and other natural disasters. Last year, four of our pumps were installed in a village with a mixed Christian and Muslim population during a time the whole region was under martial law as armed guerillas battled the Philippine Armed Forces.
The support of the Goldin Institute’s Board of Advisors has been essential to the Clean Water Project, as are grants from private philanthropies like the LUSH Foundation. We have been advocating for human rights for women and orphans in partnership with other stakeholders since 2012.
Now with the BOL, we are hopefully entering a new era of peace and productivity in our region. The challenge for us in the GI-Philippines is to expand our services and partnerships on the ground.
Please help us pray that the BOL will bring about just and lasting peace for our people - this is our dream.
Sending warm thoughts and regards to all.
Susana Anayatin, Global Associate