ThinkImpact, an international non-profit that connects young Americans to villages in rural Africa to incubate social innovations, has been selected from 94 organizations to receive $37,000 from JP Morgan Chase in their Chase Community Giving program on Facebook.

ThinkImpact successfully collected enough votes in the first round to win $25,000 and to compete in the final round. As a finalist, the Advisory Board selected the organization to receive the prize based on its “Big Idea”: To revolutionize how young people engage in the world. Chase will make a total contribution of $62,000 to ThinkImpact.

The Advisory Board was comprised of internationally recognized leaders in sports, entertainment, media philanthropy and non-profit sectors including David Robinson, Eva Longoria, Nancy Lublin, Elliot Schrage, and Kim Davis.

“It is an honor to be an Advisory Board Pick,” said Saul Garlick, executive director of ThinkImpact. “The organization is at a pivotal moment and this contribution combined with the first round prize will help ThinkImpact work with thousands of community members in Africa and expand opportunities for students from across the United States.”

ThinkImpact is currently looking to scale its proven Global Development Program which has already affected thousands of lives. The program offers summer internships in rural Kenya and South Africa where the next generation of leaders to offer ideas, leadership, and capital to leverage local community resources. Outstanding interns develop social enterprises with community leaders and earn a year-long Global Development Fellowship.

“Our program is uniquely scalable,” Garlick noted. “The $62,000 gift goes four times as far because we have a sustainable model that provides unparalleled learning opportunities for US students and the development of social enterprises that tackle health and education in poor communities. This is an incredible day for ThinkImpact and the social entrepreneurship sector.”

Garlick, 26, founded the organization as a student in high school. Today the group has made an impact worldwide. ThinkImpact has connected American college students from 40 campuses with rural communities to alleviate poverty, built 56 latrines, provided scholarships to 4 South African students from middle school to college, built 3 schools, trained more than 2500 Africans on HIV prevention and touched the lives of 50,000 people in rural Africa.

There were 16 other groups that also received Advisory Board discretionary funds, including Atlas Service Corps, Seeds of Peace and Camfed USA.

OneWorld.net selected the inspiring work of community leader and great friend of SMRC as the subject of a story on early childhood education. Doris is a special woman because she has the ideas and persistence to turn difficult situations into powerful success stories. Read the story published by OneWorld here: http://www.euronews24.org/world/mother-to-a-community-oneworld-net/

Over the years, students in developing countries have found SMRC on the web and opted to establish chapters on college campuses in their home country. This happened in Sierra Leone and below you can read the inspiring and moving story of why SMRC-SL came to be, and what it has achieved.

By Moses Beamie Seiwoh, SMRC-SL Leader

SMRC-SL was started and inspired by acclaimed youth activists, survivors of the Sierra Leone Civil War. At age nine, after nearly being buried alive as a result of disease, hunger and suffering, I pledged to spend mine life helping children. At ages 16, we successfully lobbied in the Sierra Leone’s Children’s Disarmament Campaign, an effort in the disarmament of approximately 20,000 Sierra Leonean child soldiers.

While at university I continued my vision and invited other youths to partner in the mission. SMRC-SL focuses on Sierra Leone that has faced the worst situations of all – they are beyond the need of international emergency services, but not yet advanced enough to have a self-sustaining commercial economy. Our country faces the daily realities of hunger, and a lack of basic needs such as clean water, safe schools, parks and medical care. 

We inform young people in industrialized countries about the plight of the world’s poorest children and channel their desire to create positive social change. We create tangible opportunities for young people to take action.

Sierra Leone is emerging out of over a decade of civil war.  The conflict, which lasted for over a decade, developed into one of the most gruesome civil wars seen in the sub-region. Young women and children were the most vulnerable victims. They were routinely raped, maimed, and drugged by warlords. Commanders used some as sex slaves, while others were sent into dangerous battles as combatants.   Across the country, basic infrastructure was destroyed and foreign investments ceased to exist causing thousands of jobs to be lost.

The war ended in 2002 with the support of the international community. The governments since then are struggling to tackle widespread unemployment and poverty.  According to the World Bank (WB) and the Human Poverty Index (HPI), Sierra Leone is the lowest ranked country on the Human Development Index (HDI) and the seventh poorest country on the Human Poverty Index (HPI).     Women are by impacted significantly by these numbers. The World Bank notes that less than 37% of Sierra Leonean women are educated and a vast majority is unemployed. 

With no education and very little other opportunities, women are forced to turn to prostitution for survival. Many of the women take their children with them and force children as young as eight to become prostitutes.[1]  These conditions have led to an alarming increase in teenage pregnancy, abuse, HIV/AIDS, and other STDs.

The Student movement for Real Change-Sierra Leone interviewed close to 100 women living in these areas. The conditions of the women were the worse we had seen on our multi-country assessment in Africa. Of those interviewed, 98% of them were unemployed and or illiterate, 80% of their kids were out of school because of lack of resources, 70% had engaged in some form of prostitution, 60% had been physically abused within a year of speaking with us. They had access to no government services, or opportunities to help them break out of poverty. In conclusion, the conditions of these women were beyond dire.

Upon completion of the survey, it was clear to us that our goal for Sierra Leone would be to create a special center to provide rehabilitation, basic education, vocational training, and for women. The ultimate goal of the proposed project would be to empower at least 100 women every year to break out of the cycles of poverty they face.

The empowerment of women is not a new mission, but it is one that has not been fully pursued. In 2000, 191 United Nations member states wrote and pledged to meet the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. The drive to end illiteracy and reduce the gap in gender disparity was a part of this commitment. Member states recognized the critical role of universal education in building a blueprint of a better world. World leaders cited the elimination of gender disparity in primary and secondary education as the first step toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Through the “25 by 2005” campaign, the global community committed to intensify efforts in 25 countries to maximize the number of girls in school by 2005. The “25 by 2005” goal is the first test of the world’s commitment to meet the Millennium Development Goals. Unfortunately, many countries are falling short of the 2005 target for gender parity in education.

SMRC-SL shares the belief that education plays an essential role in socio-economic development and democratic governance. Education is a vital catalyst in ending the cycle of poverty and violence; in ensures that everyone can contribute to their communities socially, politically, and economically. We also believe strongly that poverty in Sierra Leone can be crushed if opportunities are provided for the poorest people to gain access to resources and training to become economically self sustainable.
Student Movement For Real Change-Sierra Leone (SMRC-SL) is a nonprofit working to rebuild war-torn communities. The organization establishes safe and healthy environments for women and their children by providing for their core needs and developing new community infrastructure. SMRC-SL is run by a network of young leaders who are defining a new approach to delivering. humanitarian aid. By leveraging the use of local materials and employing local people, YEI-SL maximizes the economic and social impact of programs which include building schools and playgrounds.

Kroo Bay, one of the poorest areas in the centre of Sierra Leone’s beachfront capital Freetown, is a squalid slum so littered with rubbish that the paths are made of compressed plastic, cans and toothpaste tubes, and patches of bare orange earth are a rare sight.

Swarms of mosquitoes breed in pools of slimy green water, pigs and children play together in mounds of refuse. In one of the two rivers that flows past the densely packed tin and wood shelters, a bloated dead dog bobs on the surface just upstream of where people wash their clothes.

Kroo Bay’s shockingly low life expectancy is even lower than Sierra Leone national average of 45 – a major factor contributing to the country ranking last in the UN.

It rains six months of the year in Freetown and the city is one of the wettest places in the world. Kroo Bay lies at the bottom of the steep hill on which the city was built.

People living in Kroo Bay have learned to adapt to the constant invasion of water, for example by building their beds on stilts practice which means they sleep above the putrid water, causing respiratory infections.

There is no point just addressing the symptoms of the problem. Last year, The Student Movement for Real Change –Sierra Leone was able to raise $ 300 to Send four underprivileged

Kids in Kroo Bay community in Freetown-Sierra Leone, I just come got an e mail from one of my friends I met in Boulder, Colorado last summer, say he will pay to send three kids to primary school in Kroo Bay community in Freetown-Sierra Leone next academic year.

Great new video about our Global Development Ambassadors trip in March. Take a look and click here to find out how you can join us on our next Ambassadors Trip from September 5-14. Thank you to Alissa Shapiro for her amazing efforts at making this and other films a reality for SMRC!

Whether you are in the United States or live in rural Ghana, one thing is for sure, public health is the key to living a healthy life. What does public health really mean? In an impressive new campaign, “Healthiest Nation in 1 Generation,” American’s have the opportunity to engage in the questions of how public health efforts can improve our lives here in the US. The campaign aims to get American’s working  on improving our domestic health situation, but I think every nation should be part of this challenge. The most important measure of a society is whether its people are able to live a healthy, long life.

Watch the film: http://www.generationpublichealth.org/

Bill Gelfeld, recipient of a scholarship to join the Global Development Ambassadors trip to South Africa this month, put together an outstanding slideshow of photos and descriptions from the trip.

I am delighted to report that SMRC is in good shape. We have an incredible group of fellows that have funded their projects (over $45,000 in commitments so far!) and we have an incredible group of students joining the organization in Kenya and South Africa for our Global Development Internship. The future of the organization has never looked better.

However, I confess that I am no public relations guru and we have a small budget for our outreach activities.

There are competing ideas: Web 2.0, TV, Newsprint, Magazine, Website improvements, Vlogs and so much more.

I have had the pleasure of meeting with Rabinowitz/Dorf Communications for some guidance at no cost to the organization, and they have reminded me repeatedly that we must have specific goals for our public relations activites. It makes sense, so here are the things we really need:

1. Awareness of the group to improve efforts to attract new donors
2. Awareness of the opportunity to attract increasing numbers of applicants for our Global Development Internship
3. Awareness of our Fellows who are achieving remarkably while still in college. They are all deserving of feature articles – for they are driving change in partnership with developing communities.

I wanted to let you know what we are going for. Perhaps you have ideas for where we should invest resources, who we should reach out to, or if we are doing just fine and we should all just take a breather… I suspect we could be working harder on this. If it yields more high quality support for communities, we should figure it out… fast!

Lily Muldoon, project director of SMRC, was featured in the National newspaper in Kenya for her outstanding work in Kayafungo and her commitment to the people in that location. The article can be seen here.