Hi everyone!
We also want to remind you of our Facebook Causes page, please check it out and join when you get a chance –
http://apps.facebook.com/causes/85337?m=3124eff7
We use both our Fan Page and Causes page because of the great, but different, tools they both have.
Thanks!
Scott
Friends & RPCVs of Guyana
More older Americans are taking the plunge…to volunteer abroad! CNN recently posted an article that details the rising popularity of people over 50 participating in long and short term volunteer opportunities all over the world. Since 2007 applications for the Peace Corps from adults over 50 has increased by 44 percent and those numbers continue to grow. As one volunteer in the article stated, ” I’m getting to experience what it’s like to live in another culture, and that has a lot of value to me…This is the kind of travel that I’m interested in.”
For past two years I’ve been a board member of the RPCV group Friends & RPCVs of Guyana (FROG) and as nonprofits go, it takes time to build up membership, fund raise, continue outreach and develop our programs but I’m confident that we’re progressing at a solid pace.
There’s plenty of room for FROG to grow and I’ve begun to spend more time thinking long-term about the future of our organization.
How can we make our work more sustainable?
How can we better integrate into the nonprofit community in Guyana?
How can this community effectively work together and share it’s collective resources?
Guyana is a small country but with a large number of NGOs, nonprofits, community groups, volunteers and activists operating within the country. At any one time, there are thousands of people on the ground planning, organizing, volunteering and working toward the collective goal of bettering people’s lives. Thinking of our work within this context keeps bringing me to the conclusion that we’re operating without the most basic tool, collaborative mapping.
Obviously it’s the responsibility of each organization to archive their activities and projects, successes and failures, resources on the ground, for the sake of organizational memory and building upon their work. But it’s the collective responsibility of the NGO community to share with each other what will ultimately benefit the people they’re serving.
One mapping tool that strikes me as incredibly powerful is the Google Earth Enterprise system. This system allows mapping and sharing large amounts and varying types of data sets for making better organizational decisions collaboratively.
How does this work?
Google Earth Enterprise helps organizations with imagery and other geospatial data make that information accessible and useful to all employees who need access via an intuitive, visual, and fast application. Visualize, explore and understand information on a fully interactive 3D globe or 2D browser based maps. Enable your workers to collaborate, improve decision-making, and take faster, more informed action based on geospatial information.
Using this system, organizations in Guyana will quickly learn where overlapping projects exists, where resources are lacking and where they are redundant, which villages volunteers should be sent and what they need to focus on while there. Organization can compare a wide range of data sets to draw conclusions that may have otherwise been missed. Combined with tools like FrontlineSMS, InSTEDD and Ushahidi, crisis management will be more effective. Local data sets combined with UN data, information from the World Bank and other sources will help both the NGO community and the Guyanese government with “big picture” planning and outreach.
As this system, and those like it, mature, there will continue to be success stories and wider implementation of mapping technologies. Long-term, I realize this idea may be bigger than FROGs capacity, but it’s a direction we’ll push for regardless.
Friends & RPCVs of Guyana would like to take a moment and thank J. Aramathea, art director of Deitrick & Associates and The HALO Foundation, for the volunteer work she’s done with our organization. During her hours away from her work and volunteering with The HALO Foundation, J. Aramathea has been working on updating the FROG logo so that we can use it in a variety of ways. The new logo can be replicated on stationary and letterheads to items as large as posters and barndoors if we needed to.
I’d also like to take a moment to highlight her work with The HALO Foundation, which recently launched The 93 cents for Flight 93 Campaign, which is dedicated to building a memorial for Flight 93 of September 11.
(via NPCA email)
Despite limited funds to work with, the House Appropriations Subcommittee for State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs today took a major step forward to provide the resources for a bigger, better and bolder Peace Corps. In its “mark up” of programs within the International Affairs budget for Fiscal Year 2010, the subcommittee agreed to recommend a $450 Million appropriation for the Peace Corps. This decision was announced last night on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews by Subcommittee Chairwoman Nita Lowey. Click here to watch the program.
Eighteen months ago, the National Peace Corps Association launched the MorePeaceCorps Campaign anticipating an opportunity but realizing that a coordinated and sustained effort was necessary, Inspired by the indefatigable spirit of Peace Corps pioneer Harris Wofford, led by the enormous energy of our Campaign Coordinator Rajeev Goyal (Nepal 01-03), supported by Donald Ross (Nigeria 65-67) and his team at M+R Associates and fueled by the countless contributions of volunteer advocates across the nation, we all went to work: writing letters, making phone calls, hosting MorePeaceCorps House Parties, organizing constituent meetings with lawmakers, submitting letters to the editor and op/eds, taking part in a National Day of Action, marching in parades, attending rallies and much, much more..
It is very important to recognize that much more work remains, But today’s action is an historic step forward! It is your historic step forward. Congratulations!
The father of a British IT consultant who was kidnapped in Baghdad two years ago has learnt his son may be freed within the next 48 hours.
Graeme Moore shared his news after a senior member of the Shia militia group that seized his son, Peter, with his four bodyguards in 2007 was freed by the US military.
The release of Laith al-Khazali is in line with demands by the group, Asaib al-Haq, which say his freedom, and that of other rebels, would be in return for the Britons.
It is not clear whether the release of Laith was part of official or covert efforts to free the five Brits, but a friend of Peter Moore said it represented a “huge boost of hope.”
Appearing on an internet broadcast, the friend, Amber Foley, also said she was “very down” in May, when two years passed since the 32-year-old was abducted.
Her speaking out came on the same day that Graeme Moore was quoted as saying that he understands from Iraqi officials that his son could be released imminently.
“We have always been told that Peter may be the first one to be released,” he told the Independent. “I heard this afternoon that this may take place within two days.”
