Affluent Parents Dedicated to Instilling Philanthropic Values in their Children
Bonnie Lunt, Founder: Azama Project, Otavalo Ecuador, by David Chamberlain
Today's Affluent Children Are Culturally Aware, Responsible Consumers
Affluent parents are teaching their children to value philanthropy, cultural experiences, and other personally enriching activities above material goods according to the Third Annual American Express Platinum Luxury Survey. Ninety-one percent of responding parents indicated that they encourage their children to participate in charitable or philanthropic activities and almost two-thirds (62%) of children have donated a part of their own money to charity.
Almost all parents (94%) surveyed said that they want their children to have experiences that assure they are cultured and well-rounded, and even more (96%) spend time talking to their children about good ethics and values. As such, when affluent parents do spend significantly on their children, the survey results revealed it is on cultural activities, such as international travel, with two-thirds (68%) of respondents' children having traveled internationally. Even when shopping with and for their children, parents emphasize the experience more than the purchases as 66% of parents reported that the experience of shopping with their children is more important than what they buy.
"Affluent parents are raising their children to be value-conscious consumers with an appreciation for life-enriching experiences," said Simon
Kahn, vice president, Platinum Card Product Management for American Express.
Next Generation of Responsible Consumers
Parents said they emphasize the value of the dollar through discussions with their children, and these affluent children are frequently taking part- time jobs when they reach the age of 15. Parents also stress the importance of philanthropy with their children and lead by example, giving.
* Eighty-one percent of respondents indicated that they believe their children appreciate what they have.
* Similarly, 76% of affluent parents believe their children understand the value of a dollar.
* About half (53%) of all children aged 6-17 receive a regular allowance. The average weekly allowance for children aged 6-14 is $7,and $21 for children aged 15-17.
* Forty-five percent of children in the 15-17 year age range have part-time jobs. For children aged 18-21, 73% have part-time jobs.
* Ninety-one percent of parents encourage their children to participate in charitable activities and two-thirds (67%) of all respondent's children do so, or donate part of their own money to charity (62%).
* Nineteen percent of adults identified volunteer events and charity functions as a personal passion. Of those that did, 80% indicated that they include their children in such activities.
Emphasis on Experience and Enrichment
The survey revealed that when affluent parents spend on their children they do not accentuate the acquisition of material goods, but the accumulation of experiences. Frequently, they share experiences with their kids including fitness, dining or theater activities. And children of affluent parents are increasingly worldly, often traveling internationally at a younger age than did their parents.
* The top three personal passions among parents were identified as physical fitness (45%), dining out (39%) and travel (39%).
* Parents are sharing their passion for physical fitness with their children, with over half (53%) of respondents' children receiving personal lessons for sports.
* Of those affluent parents (39%) who identified travel as a personal passion, 92% indicated that they include their children in their travel activities.
* Affluent parents surveyed said when it comes to personal passions they spend the most money on travel, with an average overall annual spend of $13,004. Of the 22% of respondents with a reported household income above $600,000, average overall annual spend on travel increased to more than $20,000.
* Interestingly, over two-thirds (68%) of children were reported to have traveled internationally before the age of 17, with 80% of boys aged 13-14 and 77% of girls in the same range having already done so.
* Parents reported their first international trip at an average age of 19.
* Forty-one percent of parents reported that their child aged 17 or under is taking music lessons, and 55% of children are attending theater and music performances.
* Ninety-four percent of parents said they believe their children have experiences that make them more cultured and well-rounded.
* Two-thirds (66%) of parents indicated that they would give up 20% of their salary to spend 20% more time with their children.
METHODOLOGY: About The American Express Third Annual Platinum Luxury Survey.
The Third Annual American Express Platinum Luxury Survey was a quantitative survey conducted in June 2006 among a random cross-section of 1,170 affluent consumers in the U.S. Relevant facts of the survey include:
* Survey responses were drawn from a national sample, including 26% from New York, 32% in Los Angeles, and 42% from the rest of the country.
* Respondents had an average net worth of $4.3 million and an average household income of $472,000.
* Ninety-six percent of respondents were married, had an average age of 47 and averaged two children per household.
Those surveyed had to report a household income of at least $150,000 and fall in the age range of 30 to 59 to be considered. Respondents were not required to be American Express Card members to participate.
The American Affluence Research Center conducted the survey on behalf of American Express.
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My First Philanthropic Travel Experience
Jewel Path by Dean Chamberlain
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Philanthropic Travel: Transformational Experiences
In the beginning
In 1972 my grandfather, grandmother and I visited the poorest country in the western hemisphere: Haiti. Much to my grandmother's dismay, my grandfather decided that our adventure for the day would be exploring the countryside with a Port Au Prince taxi cab driver as our guide. After an hour driving down a dusty rutted gravel road we stopped in at a rural marketplace to experience life in rural Haiti. It was along the side of that dirt road that we had our first personal philanthropic travel experience.
Soon after the dust from our cabbie's Toyota had settled, un-clothed children, adults and their livestock emerged from the surrounding area, undoubtedly to closely examine my aqua and orange tailor made Miami Dolphins leisure suit with white leather loafers. We were surrounded by smiling faces wondering who we were and why we had stopped by to say: bonjour. Ten minutes later, after just about everyone in the crowd had a chance to smile at us, touch us and make direct eye contact with us a soccer ball flew through the air. I trapped it and quickly passed it back to my new teammate who received it effortlessly after it had flown right over the heads of several adults.
"When we are very young children we know how to feel. It's innate. But as we lead a lifetime, we pick up so many thoughts, impressions, feelings, and ideas, that our sensitivity goes away." -F.L. Ph.d
Connecting
I bonded with the local kids and my grandparents stood side by side with adults from the village while the cabbie lit a cigar. My grandmother, initially fearful of the unknown was now smiling, calmly and communicating in sign language with local women, and enjoying her experience. We all seemed to connected for those brief moments. The spontaneous transcendent events of that morning's cross cultural experience are still vivid today, as they were so many years before. Those few moments changed our lives.
Deja Vu
During my first trip to Africa while driving between Maun, Botswana and Windhoek, Namibia I was moved to pull over at a village in a remote area of the Kalahari Desert, much to my friend Linette's consternation. She declined my offer to join me for a walk into the center of the grass hut village and decided instead to stay in the car -with the doors locked. Ten minutes later I returned to the car with a crowd from the village: children running, mothers talking, fathers trailing the entourage and once again soccer balls flying through the air. Linette gracefully emerged from the car with a smile and began to open the clothes intended to gift.
Captivated by everyone's curiosity, kindness and easy laughter Linette and I spoke of life in their village and life in our village in Switzerland and the USA. We felt our guests humanity and warmth, we were welcomed and felt safe as guests of the community. An hour later after sharing gifts of Nike tee-shirts and old Levis we had agreed to deliver two men who needed a ride to their cousins funeral in a village 25 kilometers away. Sent off with with an open invitation to return completed with smiling faces, vigorous handshakes and waves we set off down the Trans-Kalahari Highway towards Namibia.
A New Journey
While driving I realized that the seed for Exquisite Safaris Philanthropic Travel, planted 27 years before in rural Haiti, had just awakened in Africa. That afternoon as I drove through the Kalahari Desert with Linette and our two new acquaintances on their way to celebrate an ending, I began again on a new journey: introducing travelers to locals with the intention of uplifting those local people and their communities through health, education and sustainable development.
If you are a traveler I encourage you to become a philanthropic traveler. Exquisite Safaris has developed partnerships with humanitarian outreach projects in Africa, Asia and South America: Orphanages, AIDS and medical clinics, schools, women's entrepreneurial initiatives, and clean water NGO's that will open their doors to you and connect you personally with the people they serve.
"Life changing luxury travel experience for you: health centers, clean water, schools and women's rights for those less fortunate in the locales you traverse: philanthropic travel". -David Chamberlain
"Don't follow the crowd. The crowd doesn't get there. They just run round and around in a crazy race. It never ends." -F.L. Ph.d
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“Bottom of the Pyramid” (BOP)
Photo: Himba Kids Angola/Namibia Border by David Chamberlain
"The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. Eradicating Poverty Through Profits"
The world's most exciting, fastest-growing new market? It's where you least expect it: at the bottom of the pyramid. Collectively, the world's billions of poor people have immense entrepreneurial capabilities and buying power. You can learn how to serve them and help millions of the world's poorest people escape poverty.
It is being done-profitably. Whether you're a philanthropic traveler, business leader or an anti-poverty activist, business guru Prahalad shows why you can't afford to ignore "Bottom of the Pyramid" (BOP) markets.
"What is needed is a better approach to help the poor, an approach that involves partnering with them to innovate and achieve sustainable win-win scenarios where the poor are actively engaged and, at the same time, the companies providing products and services to them are profitable." - Prof. C.K. Prahalad
"IF WE stop thinking of the poor as victims or as a burden and start recognizing them as resilient and creative entrepreneurs and value conscious consumers, a whole new world of opportunity will open up."
That "simple proposition" begins a controversial new management book that seems destined to be read not just in boardrooms but also in government offices. "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. Eradicating Poverty Through Profits" (Wharton School Publishing), is essentially a rallying cry for big business to put serving the world's 5 billion or so poorest people at the heart of their profit making strategies. It has already been praised by everyone from Bill Gates "a blueprint for fighting poverty" -to a former American secretary of state, Madeleine Albright -"if you are looking for fresh thinking about emerging markets, your search is ended."
"C. K. Prahalad argues that companies must revolutionize how they do business in developing countries if both sides of that economic equation areto prosper. Drawing on a wealth of case studies, his compelling new bookoffers an intriguing blueprint for how to fight poverty with profitability." Bill Gates, Chairman and Chief Software Architect,Microsoft
"The Bottom of the Pyramid belongs at the top of the reading list for business people, academics, and experts pursuing the elusive goal of sustainable growth in the developing world. C. K. Prahalad writes with uncommon insight about consumer needs in poor societies and opportunities for the private sector to serve important public purposes while enhancing its own bottom line. If you are looking for fresh thinking about emerging markets, your search is ended. This is the book for you." Madeleine K. Albright, Former U.S. Secretary of State
"Prahalad challenges readers to re-evaluate their pre-conceived notions about the commercial opportunities in serving the relatively poor nations of the world. The Bottom of the Pyramid highlights the way to commercial success and societal improvement- but only if the developed world re-conceives the way it delivers products and services to the developing world."
Christopher Rodrigues, CEO, Visa International
"An important and insightful work showing persuasively how the private sector can be put at the center of development, not just as a rhetorical flourish but as a real engine of jobs and services for the poor." Mark Malloch Brown, Administrator, United Nations Development Programme
In his book and accompanying CD videos, Prahalad presents:
Why what you know about BOP markets is wrong A world of surprises-from spending patterns to distribution and marketing.
Unlocking the "poverty penalty."
The most enduring contributions your company can make Ddlivering dignity, empowerment, and choice-not just products.
Corporations and BOP entrepreneurs profiting together from an inclusive new capitalism.
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Generosity
Teacher kept riches secret, then left charity $4.3-million.
During most of her long life, Roberta Langtry was an unassuming elementary school teacher in Toronto. She always shied away from the limelight and spent many years during her career trying to help autistic children with their speaking difficulties. But Miss Langtry, who died last year at the age of 89, carried an unusual financial secret that has been revealed only through her death.
Unknown to almost everyone who knew her, including her closest friends, the modestly paid teacher was really a closet multimillionaire, who through a bequest has given what is believed to be the largest donation from an individual to an environmental cause in Canada.
Miss Langtry asked that more than $4.3-million of her estate be given to the Nature Conservancy of Canada, a charity that buys environmentally sensitive land and turns it into nature reserves.
All the details on how Ms. Langtry amassed her nest egg aren't known. Her will contained other sizable gifts to charity and she made many donations to causes she believed in throughout her life, but her estate's executor, Robert Borden, declined to give her net worth.
While she was alive, she also made a number of large, anonymous gifts to individuals she knew who were down on their luck. These must have shocked the recipients when they opened envelopes and found an unknown benefactor had sent them cheques for $25,000 or $30,000.
It's unlikely she was suspected as the source of this generosity because she lived very plainly for someone with ample and growing cash balances.
She lived in a modest one-storey East Toronto home. Mr. Borden said he had quite a time trying to persuade Miss Langtry to part with a 15-year-old Volvo in the mid 1990s. Miss Langtry didn't like cars and frequently lamented that there were too many of them around.
She never married, had no children and didn't have the advantage of inherited wealth. In fact, she provided support for several indigent elderly aunts during her life.
Yet even in middle age she was already well off because in 1973 she approached Mr. Borden, then an executive at a Bay Street stockbroker, and asked him to manage her $500,000 in savings, a sizable sum in the days before high inflation eroded the value of money.
Mr. Borden, whose great uncle was the former Prime Minister of the same name, remembers Miss Langtry made a prescient investment call by buying shares of IBM in either the 1940s or 1950s, and kept the stock in the high-tech giant until she died.
But other than that, Mr. Borden said he had her put most of her money into safe bond investments and solid Canadian blue-chip stocks, such as those of the banks and insurance companies, that appreciated nicely over the decades.
Miss Langtry had a bit of a gambler's streak and sometimes wanted to invest in companies involved in anti-pollution work, but Mr. Borden said he had her limit these more risky ventures to a conservative 10 per cent of her portfolio.
Although grade-school teachers were not well paid before the 1970s, Miss Langtry may have had a modest side income because she developed a number of educational games, based on puzzles, that were sold in the United States.
She began teaching around the age of 16, and did the job for 55 years.
Enid Crush, her next-door neighbour and a close friend, said she had no idea Miss Langtry was well off. She didn't dress or live ostentatiously and was always frugal in her use of heating and electricity for energy conservation reasons.
But when it came to charitable giving, Miss Langtry did provide clues of greater means. Ms. Crush would go every year collecting for the March of Dimes charity along her street and Miss Langtry always gave the largest donation.
"She'd write a cheque for $300. I said, 'Roberta, most people, if I'm lucky, give $10.' It was things like that that she did. She was very, very generous to charity," Ms. Crush said.
In philanthropic circles, environmental groups have always been poor cousins compared with hospitals and universities, which frequently garner headline grabbing multimillion-dollar donations from wealthy Canadians.
So staff at the conservancy were stunned when Mr. Borden called and coyly asked: "Do you know how much I'll be sending you?" He then entertained a guess on the amount, before revealing the seven-figure number.
Helen Kim, who handles inquiries from people who donate to the organization and took the call, was taken aback by the unexpected news. "I was dumbfounded," she said.
Because the conservancy had never received such a large amount, Lynn Gran, the vice-president of philanthropy, said there were fears at first that someone had called them by mistake. "We weren't entirely sure if it was true, or not," she said.
But there was no mistake, and Miss Langtry's legacy is being feted by the conservancy, which is issuing a news release on the donation today. It plans to use the money to buy more wetlands and help safeguard the Oak Ridges Moraine, a pastoral rural area north of Toronto that Miss Langtry held dear and is the subject of large-scale conservation efforts in the province.
Miss Langtry was passionate about the environment, but didn't seek recognition for donations she made to the conservancy while she was alive. Starting in 1988, she gave about $5,000 to $10,000 a year.
She declined invitations to events the organization held to showcase properties it helped preserve from development. Ms. Kim said she would, however, call the conservancy if she thought mailings to donors were too glossy. Miss Langtry called this a waste of money and wanted something more plain.
Up until now, the largest donation the conservancy has had from an individual was about $1-million. Ms. Gran called other major environmental groups, such as Greenpeace and Ducks Unlimited, and found that they hadn't had similar gifts.
This article is replicated in the interests of transparent histories. Readers are encouraged to view the original located here:- MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT Globe and Mail
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VIDA: Volunteers for Inter-American Development Assistance
Musicians in Otavalo, Ecuador by David Chamberlain
VIDA: Disaster Relief, Medical Missions, Medical Suppy Recovery in Central and South America. US staff and volunteers filled its last 40' ocean container for the year 2001 valued at an approximate wholesale value of $410,000 of an estimated 11 tons of unused medical equipment. The containers left the port of Oakland on December 27th destined for the port of Callao in Peru. This was the 25th container of the year which marked a record total $16.4 million in medical aid sent to Latin America in 2001, a 90% increase from previous years. Additionally, in 2001, for every $1 you contributed, VIDA was able to provide $69 worth in medical supplies and equipment as over 99% of VIDA's budget went directly to support programs overseas.
Visit the VIDA online.
VIDA would be more than willing to accept donations of the following items:
Computers
Monitors
Cell Phones
Office Supplies
Donate a Vehicle
If you are thinking about replacing a car, or have an RV or boat that is not used anymore, consider the benefits of donating it to VIDA. You will receive fair market value as a tax write-off, and avoid the headache of selling a used vehicle.
Create an Estate Plan
A new partnership with Gilliss Valla & Dalsin, LLP, a law firm in Lafayette, California, is available to assist the friends of VIDA with their estate planning needs. They will work with you to create or revise your estate plan so that your assets will be distributed according to your wishes, without time-consuming and costly court proceedings, and to minimize your estate's exposure to estate taxes. For every new estate plan created for the friends of VIDA, Gilliss Valla & Dalsin, LLP, has agreed to make a substantial cash contribution to VIDA. Please contact Antonio Valla, Esq. or Steven Willock, Esq., at 925-962-9009, or at .
Volunteer
VIDA would not have the impact it does or even exist without the support of our volunteers. Our main need right now is for a biomedical technician to test and provide basic technical support to the various medical equipment we receive.
Corporations
Donate medicine, medical supplies or professional services. If your company has medical supplies or other resources you feel would benefit VIDA's work, please review our list of most needed supplies and give us a call. Or, participate in VIDA's Sponsor A Container Program whereby corporations are given the opportunity to help communities by making a financial contribution equivalent to the costs of shipping a 40 foot container to Latin America. VIDA will provide the company a biography accounting for the distribution of the container’s contents its impact on recipient organizations and communities.
Ecuador
Since 1998, VIDA has partnered with Child Family Health International (CFHI) to equip teams of doctors and medical students who travel to indigenous Shuar communities of the Ecuadorian Amazon in efforts to establish primary health clinics in the region.
VIDA expanded its program in Ecuador in 2001 to include the shipment of ocean freight containers carrying large amounts of medical supplies and equipment that have been distributed to health facilities in the Andean town of Cuenca and in the main cities of Quito and Guayaquil. In 2003 VIDA also partnered with the Junta de Beneficencia de Guayaquil, a 115-year old charity that runs 4 large hospitals as well as several clinics and nursing homes in this large port city providing mostly free medical service to over over half a million of the poorest each year, to provide them with the large quantities of medical supplies and equipment that they desperately need.
Mexico
In March 2001, VIDA representatives traveled to Mexico to assess the needs of the area and establish a relationship with a group of professional women in the health field who were trying to improve the access and quality of health care of Mexicans in need. Later that same year, VIDA-Mexico was established by this group of women, with the support of VIDA-USA, in Zamora in the centrally located state of Michoacan.
With 4 million people, the state of Michoacán is similar in size and population to Ireland, but dialysis services for low-income persons are only available in the capital city of Morelia. VIDA's first project was the establishment of a permanent dialysis center (Centro de Diálisis VIDA) at the General Hospital in Zamora with 6 Cobe C3 machines sent from the United States. Patients now will not have to travel such long distances anymore to recieve much needed dialysis treatment.
Cuba
In 2001, VIDA started making containers full of medical aid destined for Cuba. VIDA is working through Cuban Health Network , a non-profit organization from south-east United States which has been taking aid to Cuban hospitals and smaller clinics in need of medical supplies for several years in a smaller scale.
Peru
Since its origins in 1992, VIDA-Peru has worked with 1200 health care facilities and social service programs throughout Peru, north to south, from coastal cities to Andean villages and Amazon communities.
One such benefactor is the refugee camps outside of Ica, Peru where water is a scarce resource for families displaced by El Nino flooding. VIDA has worked closely with community leaders in the camps to provide medicine and medical supplies for children.
Chile
VIDA's sent its first ocean container to Chile after the El Niño floods in South America in the winter of 1998. VIDA now works with Educational Foundation for Economic & Social Development (FEDES) to distribute the medical aid sent in subsequent containers to impoverished areas in several places on Chile's long coast.
Nicaragua
A father waits for a medical consultation at the Dispensario San Francisco de Asis in Managua, a center staffed by volunteers and funded through private donations. VIDA equips the center with antibiotics and medical supplies. Maria Mercedes Arguello, the center's founder states: "VIDA has been an invaluable resource for the dispensario. We simply don't have the means to provide all the medicine and supplies necessary to treat our patients. The support of VIDA has strengthened our program and allowed us to care for many more patients."
While VIDA has been sending medical aid to Nicaragua since 1996, VIDA-Nicaragua was established in 1999 to better serve the needs of the country, as was the case after the devastating Hurricane Mitch, in which relief efforts VIDA was actively involved from the start.
El Salvador
Since 1995, VIDA has worked with the Walter Soundy Trust, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of underprivileged Salvadorans. The Foundation serves as VIDA's vital link to deliver medical supplies to over 35 health institutions in the Department of La Libertad. From providing antibiotics to the Oscar Arnulfo Romero home for orphaned children to delivering wheelchairs to the St. Vincent de Paul rest home for the elderly.
Honduras
When Hurricane Mitch hit the coast of Central America in October of 1998, VIDA was well prepared to aid the rescue missions after the hurricane's destruction. Within weeks, VIDA delivered its first container to Honduras carrying $642,000 in medicines and medical supplies to the millions of people left devastated in the hurricane's wake. VIDA now works through the San Francisco Bay Area Honduran Association to send containers with much needed medical assistance to this Central American country.
Guatemala
VIDA has collaborated with the Rotary Club of Guatemala since 1996 to promote access to health care services throughout the country. An important beneficiary of the partnership is the Hilario Galindo Hospital in Retalhuleu. After being abandoned for twelve years, the Rotary Club completely renovated the building while VIDA supplied it with the necessary medical equipment. The cooperative effort allowed the hospital to re-open its doors in August of 1998.
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Le Vietnam Experience: 2006
Once a war zone, the quiet Pacific Rim country has become an alternative tropical getaway.
While standing on a steaming street corner in Hanoi, Vietnam recently, I realized that the battle raging here between communist ideology and Western-style capitalism is most likely to be won by the side with greater access to cold towels.
This ubiquitous symbol of welcome was proffered at every moist, scorching turn - in airplanes and restaurants and hotel lobbies, on buses and boats and inside shops. The iced white cloths stand as a sign not only that foreign travelers are dropping in faster than American bombs once did (tourism is up 100 percent so far this year over last), but also that business is on the march. And that tourists and business people are treated as honored guests.
Major investment from Intel and Microsoft and a visit by Bill Gates only hint at what's to come. Seattle is also the sister city of Haiphong and is further linked by the Haiphong Seattle Partnership, a pact initiated by the World Bank in 2001 to get developed cities to help less-developed cities build their economies. Seattle has been helping Haiphong improve public health services, attract tourism, build Internet capabilities and develop urban planning. Since then, the region has been visited by Washington leaders including, Mason Sizemore, former chief operating officer of The Seattle Times, Jan Drago, Seattle city councilor; and Dave Dean, former general manager of the Port of Seattle.
A report published recently by Merrill Lynch states, "GDP growth has exceeded 7 percent for each of the last four years and consumption is becoming very conspicuous. Vietnam should not be dismissed as more interesting than investable. It is one of the last frontier emerging economies in the region -an economy that is Communist in name only."
A NEW ERA
When my wife, and I told friends of our impending journey to the Land of Ascending Dragons, many wondered why a couple from the Northwest would travel to a communist country that we were at war with not very long ago. But we were charmed by the gracious welcome we received.
"When I expressed my own surprise at the warm, friendly attitude of the people not that long after the fall of Saigon, a Vietnamese acquaintance explained that 1) Vietnam won the war; 2) their country has been occupied for centuries, and Americans were only there for 20 years; and 3) Americans are much friendlier, more curious and respectful, and happier than the Russians and Chinese who came after us. All of that combines to make the Vietnamese smile and welcome us back."
The Vietnamese may have even more reason to smile: the country is awaiting imminent acceptance into the WTO, which will expand markets for its increasing production of everything from rice to raincoats. And as hosts of the 2006 APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) Summit, it's clear that this long-ignored Pacific Rim powerhouse is, in fact, ascending.
While the business climate is hot (and the climate in general downright tropical), tourists - including a large influx of Americans from Washington to Florida - are discovering that Vietnam offers a refreshing cocktail of ancient and modern influences, from Eastern temples and pagodas to French-accented food and architecture, all blended amid the fast maturing culture of a third-world agricultural nation joining the high-tech market economy, mostly on whizzing motorbikes.
Boasting a panoply of sights and sounds, five-star infrastructure such as hotels and restaurants, and the kind of shake-your-head contrasts that make for stirring photography (a skyscraper rising out of a rice paddy; a young couple and two pigs riding a scooter; a street-side noodle shop fronting a couture dressmaker's showroom), Vietnam is worth a closer look to those with business interests or a traveler's curiosity.
WHERE TO BEGIN
Most travelers start in the north or south end of the country and work their way in the opposite direction. We began our own tour in the southern city of Saigon (also known as Ho Chi Minh City), a frenetic metropolis poised between the first and third worlds. We used Saigon as a convenient entry point but spent our limited time there on a long day trip aboard a boat through the Mekong Delta a couple of hours away. We left Saigon's coffee shops and department stores, its hidden temples and incense-smoky pagodas, for another time.
Known as the River of Nine Dragons because it enters the sea at nine separate locations, the Mekong River wanders lazily through the Delta, creating a topography that's part land, part water.
Mazes of canals branch off the main channels, leading to bright green rice fields and thatched huts perched on stilts.
Aboard a junk, Cai Be Princess, we first drifted through the floating market, where a tangle of boats advertised their wares - bananas, mangoes, pineapples - by hanging samples from tall wooden poles. On a quieter, more remote stretch of the muddy river, we glimpsed a small village through bamboo and other prolific jungle flora. Then, suddenly, a motorbike burst out along a dirt path beside the water: two girls in school uniforms on their way home from class.
We floated past young boys swimming, a woman washing her hair, and two men working on a boat engine. In places where channels braided back together, we looked upon the high, narrow architecture of modern Vietnamese homes (owners are taxed on the width of their street-or river-frontage), railings twisting like rearing dragons. In early afternoon we stopped for lunch at Ahn Kiet Mandarin House, a private home open to visitation. While the matriarch described the history of the 200-year-old structure and showed off intricate altars to Buddha and her own ancestors, her granddaughter served us crisp spring rolls and hot minced pork.
From Saigon, we made our way north to the beach resorts of Nha Trang. After a day of indulgence there, we flew to Hoi An, an ancient trading port that during the 15th through 19th centuries drew ships from as far away as Holland. The quiet, eminently walkable town (cars are banned from the center) unfurls beside the Thu Bon River close to where it pours into the South China Sea.
A stroll between low-slung colonial buildings in faded pastels will take you past historic structures such as merchants' houses and Chinese meeting halls. The iconic Japanese Bridge, first erected in the 16th century to link Japanese and Chinese neighborhoods, features stone dogs and monkeys and a Buddhist pagoda that provides brief respite from the cruel sun.
Hoi An is most famous for more than 140 talented, fast-working tailors. Visit a shop with a garment or even a magazine photo of a garment, choose a fabric, get measured and pick up your finished piece the next morning for a fraction of what it would cost in the states. While waiting for our new wardrobes, we stayed overnight at the charming Life Resort, a shady retreat tucked between city bustle and flowing river. In the morning, we wrestled through the labyrinthine vegetable market and enjoyed the local coffee, good enough to put a certain Seattle-based chain out of our minds. Hoi An is the perfect town for slow lingering, for finding a favorite internet cafe and reading the paper, for strolling to the beach in late afternoon, shopping for silk lanterns, or indulging in a massage in the leafy garden back at the Life Resort.
HUE WITH A VIEW
From Hoi An, hire a private car to drive you over Hai Van Cloudy Pass for steep coastal views from military pillboxes left behind from the "American" war. Descending northward you'll reach Hue, a UNESCO World Heritage site with wide boulevards running down and beside the Perfume River. We took a short boat ride to visit the seven-story Thien Mu Pagoda, an ancient Chinese monument perched atop a hill beside the water. Home to a memorable bronze laughing Buddha, the Pagoda once also housed Thich Quang Duc, the monk who lit himself on fire to protest what we call the "Vietnam" War.
Hue is best known for large-scale monuments such as The Citadel, location of the Forbidden Purple City, where only the king, his concubines, and the palace eunuchs were allowed to set foot. Built according to principles of Feng Shui, the grounds and buildings rival Versailles in scale and design, though they're more subdued and accessible. It was easy to imagine myself walking between the harem and one of the 10 mammoth gates on a warm evening just before it rained. The citadel encompasses several sets of massive stone walls separated by moats blooming with lotus flowers.
Not far from the Citadel lie the equally grand tomb complexes of two late Nguyen Dynasty kings (the dynasty ruled from 1802-1945). Tu Doc's tomb, set amid pines and frangipani, contains the requisite temples, pavilions, gardens, stele and 50 monuments, many of which express elements of harmony and pay tribute to the king's poetic side. Khai Dinh's impressive tomb took 11 years to build. It combines Vietnamese and European styles and is the perfect artifact to describe the influence of French colonialism on Vietnamese culture.
HANOI MYSTIQUE
But if any one place captures the mystery and beauty of Vietnam, it's Hanoi - the early and current capital - with its varied neighborhoods clustering around several lakes and along the Red River. We bedded down at the grand Sofitel Metropole in the Old Quarter, a warren of cobblestone streets lined with shops that have also served as social centers for the city's inhabitants for centuries. Each street in the Old Quarter bears the name of the wares available there - for example Knife Street and Flower Street - and the names change without warning. The surrounding architecture is a mix of fading French colonial and both modern and classical Vietnamese. Don't forget to look up from the street and its mobile food sellers in conical hats. Three stories above hovers another city of shady plants, laundry hung on balconies and the carved wooden terrace doors of upscale guesthouses.
Hanoi boasts myriad sites, from museums such as the Army Museum with its displays from the French occupation and the American war, to the Temple of Literature, which honors doctorate candidates centuries dead. National liberator Ho Chi Minh is on display in one of the oddest attractions, a tomb run with cold communist efficiency by heavily armed guards. You can also do time at the Hoa Loa Prison, known by American POWs as the Hanoi Hilton, temporary quarters of John McCain and others held during the war.
For a more entertaining afternoon, stop by the Hanoi Water Puppet Theatre, where traditional rural folktales are acted out by puppets suspended above a pool of water. Most of all, though, Hanoi is a city to discover by walking, by getting lost in the streets until you realize you haven't seen another tourist for hours. Crouch on a stool with locals for "bia hoi" (fresh beer) or walk around one of the lakes and past gated embassies housed in old French mansions. Dinner at the lively, elegant Hanoi Press Club is the perfect end to any long day of touring.
DECENDING DRAGON
A couple of hours from Hanoi lies Halong Bay, where in Vietnamese myth the dragon descends into the sea. Some of the 3,000 limestone islands floating in the Gulf of Tonkin may look familiar to you from screen prints you've seen hanging in countless Asian restaurants back home.
This World Heritage Site is best visited aboard an overnight boat such as the classy Emeraude, a replica French paddlewheel steamer from the 19th century. During the day the Emeraude motors past floating villages and rocky islands with pagodas clinging to the summits and stops long enough for passengers to explore massive caves nearby. In the evening, the boat docks in time for a sunset kayak trip before dinner in the formal dining room and an overnight stay. We ended our day - and our Vietnam journey - sipping a citroen presse on the canopied top deck of the Emeraude, imagining that the rocky spine of islands off the port side was the tail of a dragon, disappearing back into the sea.
Vietnam Links:
Philanthropic Travel Vietnam
Halong Bay World Heritage Site
Old Quarter Hanoi
Investing in Vietnam
Related Links:
My First Philanthropic Travel Experience
Teaching your Children Philanthropy
Understanding Philanthropic Travel
Why Exquisite Safaris?
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Campaign for Female Education
The Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED) is dedicated to fighting poverty and AIDS in rural communities in Africa by educating girls. CAMFED began in 1993 by supporting 32 girls in rural Zimbabwe. In 2005, more than 246,520 children benefited from CAMFED's programme of educational support in some of the poorest regions of Zimbabwe, Zambia, Ghana and Tanzania.
CAMFED has helped to transform the lives of young women like Lucia, who was able to finish secondary school with CAMFED's support. Today, Lucia is a member of the CAMFED Association (CAMA), a growing network of 4,700 young women supported through their education by CAMFED who are contributing to the social and economic regeneration of their rural communities.
These young women - among them doctors, lawyers, teachers and businesswomen - are now sharing the benefits of their education with their communities. Alongside a vast network of volunteers in the communities where they work, CAMA members supported more than 16,000 children to go to school through their own philanthropic initiatives.
This Skoll Foundation documentary is replicated in the interests of transparent histories. Readers are encouraged to view the original located here.
CAMFED was named International Aid & Development Charity of the Year in 2003 and currently co-chairs the United Nations Girls' Education Initiative (UNGEI). In 2005, CAMFED was awarded a prestigious Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship by eBay founder Jeff Skoll and Executive Director Ann Cotton was awarded an OBE in the Queen's New Year Honours list for her services to girls education in rural Africa. CAMFED patrons include internationally-acclaimed actor Morgan Freeman and renowned author Doris Lessing.
Watch the Video
Related Links:
Understanding Philanthropic Travel
The Struggle for Gender Equality and AIDS in Africa
Teaching your Children Philanthropy
Traveler Funded School: Zambia
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Promote Unorthodox Thinking
Volcano Imbabura, Otavalo, Ecuador by David Chamberlain
Paying It Forward: A pastor's experiment proves beneficial to Charities
Inspired by a Biblical tale and a Hollywood movie, a minister in Southern California started a movement with a pocketful of cash that encourages people to discover creative ways to help others. The idea, officially called the Kingdom Assignment, has been adopted primarily by churches around the country and overseas. But religious organizers who have created similar programs say that other nonprofit organizations could duplicate some version of the charitable venture.
Six years ago, Denny Bellesi, the founding pastor of the nondenominational Coast Hills Community Church, in Aliso Viejo, Calif., handed out $100 bills from the church's coffers to 100 volunteers from the congregation. Each volunteer was instructed to use the money beyond the church in a way that would help others. During a church service 90 days later, the volunteers announced what they had done with the money.
The church's original investment of $10,000 eventually inspired others to give, which turned into a windfall of more than $1-million for a host of good causes, such as supporting a Boy Scouts troop in an impoverished neighborhood and building a new homeless shelter.
This story of good works, however, didn't end there. When word of the creative philanthropy spread - on television's The Oprah Winfrey Show, and in the pages of Woman's Day, Reader's Digest, and scores of local newspapers - more churches decided to try their own variation of the $100 giveaway. While the original project ended almost six years ago, churches continue to launch their own programs. Mr. Bellesi, who now serves as interim teaching pastor at Lake Avenue Church, in Pasadena, Calif., estimates that hundreds of churches and organizations across the country have copied his congregation's efforts.
"It feels like it's the tip of the iceberg," he says. "It's an underground movement that keeps chugging along. When people hear about it for the first time, they have the same blown-away feeling."
Better Than Writing a Check
Many church leaders, as well as charities that have benefited from the philanthropic experiment, echo his enthusiasm. "I think the Kingdom Assignment is very effective," says Gary Marzolf, pastor at the First United Methodist Church, in Newton, Iowa, which recently completed a similar project. "It's more effective than writing a check. We will never know exactly how lives are touched by it."
Tom Vanderlaan, executive director of the Newton YMCA, which received money through the Kingdom Assignment, was impressed by the creative act of charity.
"I absolutely loved it and thought it was just awesome," he says. The YMCA received a few hundred dollars for one of its camp programs and for scholarships to pay for YMCA memberships for needy families. The good works were especially welcome since the announcement that the household appliance manufacturer Maytag, which was bought this year by the Whirlpool Corporation, will be closing its Newton facilities, creating greater need for social services.
Inspiration From Hollywood
The original Kingdom Assignment came about because a philanthropic opportunity for distributing $10,000 from the Coast Hills Community Church's mission fund had fallen through. Instead, Mr. Bellesi decided to divide the money 100 ways among volunteers from the church's roughly 7,000-member congregation. At a Sunday service, he asked volunteers to come up front without first explaining what was in store for them.
He drew inspiration from the Bible, as well as a 2000 movie, Pay It Forward, starring Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt, that revolved around the idea that someone who is given a favor should bestow an act of kindness on three people. The Biblical passage that the pastor shared with his congregation was the Parable of the Talents, which tells the tale of a man who gave his three servants talents (or money) and what they did with it. Those who multiplied the money were rewarded.
He and other pastors who have given their congregations the Kingdom Assignment say it can be adopted by other nonprofit organizations, and offer the following tips for doing so:
Promote unorthodox thinking. Creativity should be encouraged because it makes the donation more meaningful to both donor and recipient, says Jack Hawkins, pastor of Canyon Springs Church, in San Diego. Many of his members came up with resourceful ways to multiply the impact of the gift, but more than a dozen of the 84 volunteers simply wrote checks to charities. Mr. Hawkins says he wished he had done more to encourage his parishioners to use their gifts in a meaningful way: "Don't just give $100 to the Salvation Army."
Many of the parishioners did get creative and were able to multiply the dollars they gave away.
At the Fellowship at Cinco Ranch, in Katy, Tex., for instance, a teenager learned of a family who couldn't afford a tombstone for a young child who had died. The teenager used her Kingdom Assignment money to stage a concert at the church, which raised $3,000.
A fellow congregation member held a Christmas party with presents for children who had evacuated the Gulf Coast and moved to Houston after Hurricane Katrina, discovering that community members were eager to contribute once they learned about the cause. The volunteer persuaded other people to donate invitations, decorations, and gifts for the event.
In San Diego, a Canyon Springs church member who loved shoes used her $100 to throw an open house for her friends and asked each of them to bring a new pair of shoes for poor people in Mexico.
Seek publicity.
News coverage helped Terry Zwick, a member of the Coast Hills Community Church who participated in the original Kingdom Assignment, parlay her $100 into the creation of a battered women's shelter, as well as a transitional shelter for women, which provides residents with skills and resources to prepare them for independent living.
Ms. Zwick and a handful of peers had talked for months about their desire to open a facility in California's Orange County, but Ms. Zwick said the spark needed to get them started was the $100.
Hours after receiving the money, she shared what happened at the church with friends at a birthday party, who all contributed money. The owner of the restaurant where the party was held offered to donate food to the shelter.
People continued to respond to her requests for help, and some of the donations were substantial: One donor gave $75,000 toward the down payment for the shelter, and a construction company gave $150,000 to refurbish the transitional shelter.
Ms. Zwick's efforts eventually attracted the press. "Every time I did an interview, I would receive oodles of phone calls asking, 'How can I help?'" she says. "The Kingdom Assignment grew this ministry very quickly and grander than it would have been."
In 2000, Hope's House, the transitional shelter, opened in Dana Point, Calif., and two years ago, the battered women's shelter opened. Rick Dunn, president of the Foundation for Hope, which oversees the facilities, says the Kingdom Assignment played a large role in making the charity a reality.
"It was God's perfect timing," says Mr. Dunn. "It really moved our timetable up significantly."
The publicity can also encourage other organizations to try the charitable experiment. A local newspaper wrote about Kingdom Assignment participants at the First United Methodist Church, in Newton, Iowa, for instance, and news of their efforts spread to The Des Moines Register - and, eventually, to network television news. As a result of the publicity, an anonymous donor gave $5,000 earlier this year to a Des Moines church to try it too.
Be realistic.
Don't expect every Kingdom Assignment participant to think big, cautions Mr. Bellesi.
Many people will simply use the money to create small acts of kindness, and those modest gestures should be welcomed too. The event, he says, shouldn't turn into a contest to see who can raise the most cash in the most ambitious fashion.
At the church in Newton, for instance, a congregation member broke down the $100 into smaller amounts of money, sheathed in plastic bags, along with an explanation of the Kingdom Assignment, and hid them in a grocery store, with the idea that shoppers would discover them.
Mr. Bellesi acknowledges that he and his wife, Leesa - who compiled Kingdom Assignment stories for the couple's two books on the subject - got overly ambitious when they tried to expand the Kingdom Assignment in the wake of Hurricane Katrina last year.
The couple offered $1,000 for one church in every state in the union, in the hopes that participants would aid victims of the Gulf Coast storm. To support the project, the couple used some of the proceeds from the recent sale of their home, which they had put into a foundation. Each church had to promise to pass out the money to its parishioners, who in turn would have to use it to help hurricane survivors. The couple stopped their effort after churches in just 21 states got involved - far short of the 50 they set as their goal. "People got weary of Katrina," he says. "If I didn't get them right at the beginning, then it was forgotten."
Keep the scale small.
An organization can get overwhelmed if it hands out too much cash - and not every group will be able to afford the largess.
For organizations with a small membership, it is best to start modestly, suggests Ms. Bellesi, to make it easier to keep track of the participants. A small church with 50 or 60 members, for instance, should probably limit the number of volunteers to five.
Document the event. Typically, churches ask Kingdom Assignment volunteers to gather at a service about 90 days after the cash is handed out, to share their experiences with the congregation. Churches often videotape these sessions, while others also bind the stories into a book or post them on their Web sites. "It's important that there be a lasting record," says Mr. Marzolf, of the First United Methodist Church, in order to have evidence of good works and so that the project can serve as an inspiration to others.
Try variations to the $100 giveaway. Some churches get children involved by handing them $25 or some smaller amount of money. Each member of a Boy Scouts troop in San Diego, for instance, was given the challenge of doing something worthwhile with $25.
Mr. Bellesi's former church, Coast Hills, ended up trying something entirely different. The church eventually started Kingdom Assignment 2, which asked members to donate something worth at least $100.
The church held a large garage sale on its parking lot, and some of its members sold items on eBay, raising more than $100,000 for a variety of charities. Other churches skip the garage sale and just ask members to sell something of value and donate the money to a good cause.
Profit from the good deeds.
Many people who have participated in a Kingdom Assignment say they get involved in charitable good works instead of just writing checks, and their experiences can spur others to try. The project can also improve the standing of the church or a nonprofit organization that undertakes it. "It lets people know the church is outward thinking," Mr. Marzolf says. "It's not just trying to raise money for itself."
Related Links:
Understanding Philanthropic Travel
My First Philanthropic Travel Experience
Teaching your Children Philanthropy
Why Exquisite Safaris?
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Go with the Flow
Informator by Dean Chamberlain
The expression going with the flow is a metaphor that applies to navigating a river. When we go with the flow, we follow the current of the river rather than push against it. People who go with the flow may be interpreted as lazy or passive, but to truly go with the flow requires awareness, presence, and the ability to blend one's own energy with the prevailing energy. Going with the flow doesn't mean we toss our oars into the water and kick back in the boat, hoping for the best. Going with the flow means we let go of our individual agenda and notice the play of energy all around us. We tap into that energy and flow with it, which gets us going where we need to go a whole lot faster than resistance will.
Going with the flow doesn't mean that we don't know where we're going; it means that we are open to multiple ways of getting there. We are also open to changing our destination, clinging more to the essence of our goal than to the particulars. We acknowledge that letting go and modifying our plans is part of the process. Going with the flow means that we are aware of an energy that is larger than our small selves and we are open to working with it, not against it.
Many of us are afraid of going with the flow because we don't trust that we will get where we want to go if we do. This causes us to cling to plans that aren't working, stick to routes that are obstructed, and obsess over relationships that aren't fulfilling. When you find yourself stuck in these kinds of patterns, do yourself a favor and open to the flow of what is rather than resisting it. Trust that the big river of your life has a plan for you and let it carry you onward. Throw overboard those things that are weighing you down. Be open to revising your maps. Take a deep breath and move into the current.
Learn More:
Understanding Philanthropic Travel
Fast Company Magazine on Philanthropic Travel
Daily Om
Philanthropic Traveler funded High School opens near Victoria Falls, Zambia
The Fable of Stone Soup
My First Philanthropic Travel Experience
Exquisite Safaris Donates 10% profit + 10% employee time + your loose change..
Affluent Parents Dedicated to Instilling Philanthropic Values in their Children
Giving while Living: The Deeper News About the New Philanthropy
Dr. Jeffrey Sachs on the Strategic Steps Out of Poverty
Are We Talking about Philanthropy Yet? No, We Are Not
Philanthropic Travelers:
Milton & Fred Ochieng: Philanthropic Travelers
Jane Kaye- Bailey: Philanthropic Traveler
Richard Branson: Philanthropic Traveler
Angelina Jolie: Philanthropic Traveler
Karen Jacobsen: Philanthropic Traveler
Oprah Winfrey: Philanthropic Traveler
Palm Beach Life Magazine: Philanthropic Travelers
Why Exquisite Safaris?
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Clinton Global Initiative: Inspiring Change, Delivering Results
Winter Surf Carmel, California by David Chamberlain
The Clinton Global Initiative is a non-partisan catalyst for action, bringing together a community of global leaders to devise and implement innovative solutions to some of the world's most pressing challenges.
Watch an inspirational video about the Clinton Global Initiative.
Among the additional CGI commitments announced today were:
CLIMATE CHANGE
$3 Billion for Biofuels from Branson
To gasps, applause, whispers of "is that for real?!" and then more applause, Virgin Group President and CEO Richard Branson annouced at a jam-packed press conference a truly astonishing committment: To devote all future profits from the Virgin Group's transportation businesses - a projected $3 billion over the next 10 years - to the development of climate-friendly biofuels.
Global production of ethanol (a gasoline substitute made from corn) has doubled since 2000. Today the U.S. ethanol industry is worth around $5.5 billion and capacity is expected to triple over the next six years.
Enter Branson, who is aiming not just to advance cheaper, more efficient forms of ethanol for cars, but to develop bio-based fuels for airplanes, too. Eco-consciousness is not something new for Virgin. Nearly a decade ago, Virgin Trains in Britain began building the world's first commercial fleet with regenerative braking (generating electricity every time the train brakes - the same technology later incorporated in the Toyota Prius). The trains feed 17 percent of the power they use back into the UK electricity grid.
Now the Group is spinning off Virgin Fuels to develop the fuels of the future. Speaking today at a CGI panel on renewable fuels, Branson said he had been inspired by conversations with top scientists, who persuaded him of the genuine risks of global warming, and by a visit a few months back from Al Gore, who encouraged him to step up with a "grand gesture."
"The only way global warming's going to be whipped is if we can come up with alternative energies that are profitable," Branson said. "It's got to be sustainable. You can't just give the money away."
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB)
KPCB is committing $100 million toward dramatically increasing support for breakthrough ventures in renewable energy and low carbon technologies, recognizing and rewarding outstanding green policy innovators and combating global infectious disease.
Appleton Foundation
The Appleton Foundation (in partnership with Hidary Foundation, SmartTransportation.org) will commit $1 million over three years to create a new national Canadian charitable program, GreenApple, to facilitate the conversion of taxis and other public transportation to hybrid and other low emission vehicles across Canada.
Environmental Defense
Committing $1.5 million over three years, Environmental Defense will approach key states' public utility and/or environmental commissioners to see that new coal-fired power plants are carbon-neutral, that is, that they sequester or offset their global warming pollution.
Wendy Abrams (co-chair of Cool Globes, Inc.)
With $1 million over two years, Cool Globes, Incorporated will be established to design and implement the premiere of the “Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet” program, a public art exhibition and educational initiative kicking off in Chicago. The public art exhibition will display dozens of 5-foot diameter globe sculptures, each themed with a solution to global warming.
Global Green USA
Global Green commits to raising $1.5 – 3.5 million over the next two years toward its continuing effort to apply green building design criteria, and where possible net zero energy and climate neutral strategies, to insure all school construction and renovation in New Orleans and Louisiana is built green. Utilizing our "climate solutions for communities" strategy will also allow us to show how green schools are smart solutions to global warming.
Marsh, Inc., Ceres, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
Marsh Inc, Ceres and the Yale School of Forestry will commit $1.2 million over four years to create the Sustainable Governance Forum, a leadership development program that will prepare corporate directors for the business risks of climate change. The Forum will educate over 200 board members from Fortune 1000 companies.
GLOBAL HEALTH
First Lady Laura Bush, USAID, PEPFAR, The Case Foundation and the MCJ Foundation
This $16.4 million combined commitment will bring the PlayPump water system to more than 1,000 communities and schools in Sub-Saharan Africa in order to provide safe, clean drinking water to thousands of people. PlayPumps use merry-go-rounds to pump water for an entire community.
Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC)
Based on its highly effective health improvement and poverty eradication interventions in Bangladesh and Afghanistan, the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) will put $250 million toward programs in Tanzania, Uganda, Sudan, Kenya and Nigeria. These programs will target increasing access to medical care and malaria prevention, expanding primary education programs, sustainable and equitable agricultural activities and microfinance programs aimed at stimulating local entrepreneurship through a sustainable financial mechanism.
Pfizer, Inc.
In conjunction with its country offices in Ghana, Kenya and Senegal, and on-the-ground partners, Pfizer will help (i) to increase the percentage of patients who seek proper malaria care and (ii)to improve medicines delivery to, and enhance the effectiveness of the informal sector as the most important infrastructure component of anti-malarial delivery. Pfizer will commit $15 million over 5 years toward fulfilling these malaria control and prevention goals.
US Doctors for Africa and its Donors
With $75 million over five years, US Doctors for Africa commits to deploying 200 "Mobile Clinics" and 2000 volunteer medical professionals throughout the Sub-Saharan African countries by 2011. This initiative also includes revitalizing existing health infra-structure by renovating and adding a total of 100 on the ground Health Centers.
VillageReach
VillageReach will commit $3.1 million over five years to its continued effort in improving access to and quality of health services in Mozambique through a large-scale improvement of basic infrastructure and supply lines. VillageReach will expand in Mozambique's Cabo Delgado and Nampula provinces, where the program already has a presence, and build from there.
International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI)
IAVI will strengthen its substantial ties in India - with industry, government, and communities - and broaden the scope of its research and design projects in other countries where the HIV/AIDS epidemic is, or is likely to be, most severe. IAVI will commit $7.5 million over three years toward these goals.
The Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND)
FIND will commit $4 million over four years to creating a model for sustainable improvement in laboratory capacity, thus ensuring the reliable diagnosis of poverty related diseases at all levels of the health system. Working with the government of Uganda, the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF) and other public and private partners, FIND will identify deficiencies in current diagnostic services, refine a package of essential diagnostics, and develop a plan to address those deficiencies in a sustainable manner through social franchising.
POVERTY ALLEVIATION
The Global Partnership for Afghanistan (GPFA)
The Global Partnership for Afghanistan (GPFA) will invest $450,000 over two years to launch 100 commercially-viable orchard and woodlot businesses in Afghanistan. Each operation is projected to generate an income sufficient to sustain a family of eight, and deliver a rate of return higher than poppy cultivation when averaged over seven years.
UNDP Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor
The UNDP Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor is providing $315,000 over the next 21 months to fund Working Groups bringing together practitioners and experts to identify specific barriers to business operation faced by small-scale entrepreneurs in the informal economy. By directly involving both business owners and local government administrators, the Groups will ground their recommendations in real practices.
Internews Network
Internews Network's new Humanitarian Media Assistance Program (HMAP) will conduct workshops around the world in impoverished areas and conflict zones to bolster local media's infrastructure and ability to respond to emergency. With $2.2 million over 3 years, HMAP will maintain a stock of communications equipment and a group of humanitarian journalists that can be rapidly deployed to regions in strife.
Opportunity International
The "$500 Million for 50 Million People" campaign will provide loans, savings, insurance, and training to people working their way out of poverty in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. Sixty percent of the 50 million recipients of this aid will be loan recipients and their family members; the other 40 per cent will be those employed by loan recipients, or people who participate in Opportunity’s savings and insurance programs.
Trickle Up Program
Trickle Up is committing $1 million over three years to help entrepreneurs in Africa, Asia and Latin America who have been particularly successful in the organization's core programs by graduating them to the Second Steps program. Participants will receive additional access to credit and advanced business training geared toward people with low levels of literacy. To be eligible, participants must present scalable business plans including components for community development.
First American Corporation
The First American Corporation will empower people in underdeveloped countries with legal title to their land by developing a template for creating and maintaining land-record systems. First American's $1 million investment will help develop land record systems which will open doors for the expansion of financial literacy and wealth-building by protecting current and future landowners with legal rights.
MITIGATION OF RELIGIOUS AND ETHNIC CONFLICT
The Engelberg Foundation
The Engelberg Foundation, in partnership with the Mosaica Association, Adam Centers, Foundation for Reconciliation in the Middle East, is committed to creating a cadre of religious leaders qualified to serve as agents of dialogue between and within Jewish and Arab communities. Their $350,000 commitment will help build educational frameworks in order to build meaningful relationships and lead to better inter-communal relations.
Seeds of Peace
Partnering with ExxonMobil, USAID, Marble Collegiate Church, Private Arab and Jewish donors and Israeli recording artist Liel, Seeds of Peace is forming a $1.2 million institute to provide advanced negotiation and mediation training to university-aged Israelis and Palestinians alumni of Seeds' other leadership programs. The institute's mission is to empower an emerging generation of Israeli and Palestinian youth to lead their communities toward peace. Program curriculum will cover human rights, gender issues, religion and democracy, and program participants will do outreach work using Seeds' communication technologies to expand their reach.
Alan B. Slifka Foundation
The Alan B. Slifka Foundation will host dialogues for acknowledged leaders in different fields to discuss how to use "macro-level" forces, including public policy, pronouncements, and economic strategies to promote peace and tolerance. Participants will commit themselves and their constituencies to establishing high-level agencies that will address coexistence in their nations and communities.
Interfaith Environmental Council (IEC)
Interfaith Environmental Council (IEC) is committed to a $550,000 expansion of its "Green Sanctuaries Program," a pilot program currently in 16 religious facilities in Los Angeles. The Program's four component projects will all be expanded to help religious facilities install solar panels, improve water conservation, educate young congregants about green homes and communities and provide all congregants with a comprehensive green resource guide encouraging them to implement sustainable practices in their own homes and businesses.
Gadi Kenny
Gadi Kenny committed $100,000 to fund the "Abraham’s Vision" program for the summer of 2006. The program works with students from Jewish, Palestinian, and the broader Muslim communities in order to create safe spaces in which they can develop and re-develop their notions of themselves, the "other", and the world at large.
Breakthrough
Breakthrough is launching a $4.5 million education campaign to reduce hostility towards immigrants, to encourage diversity, and to endorse fair immigration policies.
The Value Families campaign targets young adults with a set of multimedia products including music videos, podcasts and video games and frames immigration issues in terms of human rights instead of the current discourse based on fear and anger.
The following organizations and individuals also made one or more commitments today. For more detailed information on these commitments, please visit the CGI website at www.clintonglobalinitiative.org.
The Club of Rome
Dallah-Albaraka Group
JN Medical Corporation
Eileen Fisher
GETF
BroadReach Healthcare, LLC
L’Altra Napoli
AES Corporation
International Renewable Energy
Teleperformance Group Inc.
VidaGas
VillageReach
Sabin Vaccine Institute
Christiana Figueres
Urban-Climate & Energy Inc.
The Albright Group, LLC
The Advocacy Project (AP)
Citigroup Foundation
International Alert
Peres Center for Peace
City Year, Inc.
Drishtee Foundation
ENDEAVOR: High-impact Entrepreneurs. High-impact Change
The First American Corporation
KickStart International
Inveneo Inc.
International Diabetes Federation
School of Natural Resources & Environment, Univ. of Michigan
MAP International (Medical Assistance Programs)
Skoll Foundation
GAIN - Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition
PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative
Helen Keller International
ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability
CNIC (Spanish National Centre for Cardiovascular Research)
World Heart Federation
Save the Children
University of Michigan School of Natural Resources & Environment
First Voice International; Population Media Center
ecoAmerica
The Public Library of Science
Kiva.org
Microcredit Summit Campaign
The Wolfensohn Center for Development
World Vision
BD Biosciences
BroadReach Healthcare, LLC
Bipartisan Policy Center (BNPC)
Sierra Club
Citigroup
World Health Organization (WHO)
Novo Nordisk Inc.
S. Daniel Abraham
The University of California, Berkeley
The Sanam Vaziri Quraishi Foundation
The Clinton Global Initiative is a non-partisan catalyst for action with an emphasis on results. During the three-day annual meeting, attendees participate in workshops and meetings focused on four main topics: Energy & Climate Change; Mitigating Religious and Ethnic Conflict; Poverty Alleviation; and Global Health. Attendees will make specific commitments to address one of the topics covered and will report to President Clinton on the progress made throughout the course of the coming year. Attendees who do not make or keep their commitment will not be invited to attend future meetings.
Related Links:
Understanding Philanthropic Travel
Business of Benificence
Blending Business and Philanthropy
America: The History of Philanthropy
Google.Org: for Profit Philanthropy
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