Archive for category: Nonprofit Organizations and NGOs

Information and stories about nonprofit organizations and NGOs

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Problems Along the Kurdistan Border

The recent turmoil taking place in Iraq has caused massive changes in the political, social and cultural landscape of the country. One interesting area that hasn’t been given very much attention is Kurdistan, located in the northernmost portion of the country.

The semi-autonomous region has remained very stable, which is particularly intriguing considering that the rest of the country is beginning to unravel. As a result, it has become a very desirable destination for Iraqi refugees suffering from the turmoil in their local communities; the number of Iraqis attempting to cross the Kurdistan border has grown.

When conflict first started to break out in Iraq, the Kurdistan borders were open for any Iraqi who needed shelter and security. In the immediate aftermath of ISIS taking Mosul, around 500,000 Iraqis made their way into Kurdistan. However, more recently the border has been significantly tightened as fewer and fewer people are able to cross into Kurdistan.

According to various NGOs working along the border, checkpoints have been increasingly closed off to migrants, leaving thousands waiting for days on end in the blazing heat. This wait is made even worse by a severe lack of information and limited access to food, water and shelter.

One major checkpoint, Khazair, does have a transit camp that is open to those waiting to get into Kurdistan. It offers some modicum of shelter and safety, but very little comfort. A recent report from REACH has indicated that just under half of the refugees were at the camp because they had been refused entry into Kurdistan.

Despite these less than ideal circumstances along the Kurdish border, there’s an even deeper layer to the process of entering the area. Various rights groups have brought attention to different levels of access offered to people and families based on their religious affiliation and ethnicity. Kurds, Christians, and those who have sponsors inside Kurdistan are able to cross with relative ease.

In comparison, Sunni and Shia Arabs have been regularly stopped and/or sent to temporary holding sites. As one senior aid worker from an NGO who chose to remain anonymous said, “The blocking of entry to people along ethnic lines is an issue and it needs to be looked at.”

This problem is only exacerbated by the fact that the Kurdish Regional Government has no well-defined entry policy for their region. As Liene Viede, a public information officer for the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) explained: “There is no general and common access policy… According to the observations of our monitors, access policies applied at checkpoints are increasingly unpredictable.”

It remains to be seen how badly this discrimination is affecting the overall access to Kurdistan, or whether more complete or better defined regulations regarding border crossings are in the works. However, the lack of predictability and potential for conflict along ethnic lines is beginning to loom large in what is considered to be one of the most stable areas in the country.

– Andre Gobbo

Sources: IRIN 1, REACH, IRIN 2
Photo: The Guardian

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NGO Jobs in Seattle

The city of Seattle is a goldmine for those looking into careers with NGOs (non-governmental organizations). NGOs are typically philanthropic, nonprofit organizations. As a progressive urban center and major economic hub, Seattle is a particularly well-suited place for NGOs to thrive. Below are three of the many great NGOs in Seattle.

 

The Borgen Project

Openings for paid positions are listed here. Seattle Internships are incredibly competitive with many candidates coming from across the country for the opportunity to be part of The Borgen Project. To improve your chances apply for a winter or spring internship.

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Founded in 1994, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has grown to become the world’s largest private foundation. Though the Foundation focuses on global issues of poverty and development, it is based in Seattle and does many local jobs on the side. The Foundation primarily supports development projects around the world by providing grants. As of 2011, the Foundation was responsible for a grand total of $24.81 billion in grants. As such a large and prosperous organization, there are always openings in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for those with the right skill set.

World Affairs Council

The World Affairs Council has taken a much different take than the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The nonprofit organization is over 60 years old — founded in 1951 — and is geared more towards community outreach and involvement than in money and grants. The Council’s goal is to get Seattle residents more involved in topics of global development. Much like The Borgen Project, the World Affairs Council is a great place to get experience through volunteering and internships — though more long-term opportunities are available for those with more experience under their belts.

Vittana

Vittana is a noteworthy Seattle-based nonprofit organization fighting to end global poverty through microfinancing. The NGO is committed to providing education to troubled and impoverished youth around the world. With very small loans — often only in the hundreds of dollars — Vittana is successfully fighting poverty through education. The organization has limited openings, though its unique approach toward global development makes it an exciting and rewarding place to work.

Seattle is home to a wide variety of NGOs that are devoted to fighting global poverty. Many of them, like Vittana, use atypical methods to great effect. The right combination of innovation and capital has made Seattle a great home for NGOs. For those looking to work at great organizations like these, there is a wealth of job options in Seattle.

– Sam Hillestad

Sources: Devex, The Borgen Project, Vittana.org
Photo: Washington.edu

 

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Global Impact: Forming Partnerships

Global Impact is a group dedicated to forming partnerships and aiding both nonprofits and private sector organizations. By providing both secretariat and advisory resources, Global Impact has helped over 100 international charities, 100 private sector entities and 300 public sector entities flourish.

Global Impact was established in 1956. Since its inception, over $1.6 billion has been raised in order to help the world’s most impoverished people. Global Impact helps charities like Save the Children, Doctors Without Borders, the U.S. Fund for UNICEF and World Vision.

The organization seeks to develop effective strategies for giving, from the donors to the charities they want to support. More recently, Global Impact decided to team up with CollaborateUP. Global impact explains the CollaborateUP as “a boutique consulting firm advising businesses and nonprofits on how to work together to solve big problems.” According to Global Impact, CollaborateUP will “co-host an executive education program for creating shared value and maximizing strategic philanthropy.”

The program will take place between August 20 and August 22 and will act as a three-day training session for leaders of major companies dedicated to supporting nonprofits, as well as the leaders of the nonprofits themselves.

Global Impact has also been responsible for providing aid to the mass number of children who are coming to the U.S. from Central America in order to escape the poverty and violence of their homelands. The organization has been consistently working with World Vision to address the problem. Global Impact has helped World Vision organize and execute their plan to provide clothing, school supplies and shelter for these incoming children.

Global Impact has also been working with the Seattle International Fund to help alleviate issues that cause children to flee in the first place. According to Global Impact, the fund plans to invest over $1 million in the next five years to “support young adult leaders in Central America and help them to implement innovative projects within their organizations that are designed to demonstrate measureable impacts on girls’ equality and/or adolescent sexual and reproductive health rights.”

Global Impact’s primary mission is to help these nonprofit organizations effectively accomplish their goals in order to provide support to people facing extreme poverty and oppression.

– Jordyn Horowitz

Sources: CollaborateUP, Charity.org 1, Charity.org 2
Photo: Charity.org

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Silicon Valley Community Foundation

Launched in 2007 through a merger between the Peninsula Community Foundation and the Community Foundation Silicon Valley, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation has developed a new approach for giving. The organization’s overall aim is to maximize the impact each donation will have for any given cause.

The Silicon Valley Community Foundation,  led by CEO Emmett D. Carson, operates by working to “simplify giving so donors can focus on their charitable passions, partner with the most effective organizations to create change, and advance innovative philanthropic solutions to challenging problems.” Moreover, its five basic strategies (economic security, education, immigrant integration, regional planning and a community opportunity fund) help ensure the foundation’s success.

In order to achieve maximum outreach, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation collaborates with other foundations and initiatives. Many of these foundations target early childhood education and community leadership projects focused on “strengthening organizations serving low-income and communities of color.”

Initiatives that have recently been completed include the Fostering the Future initiative, which took place over a six year period (2005-2011). Its objective was to provide a better life for youth that are subjected to abuse from either their biological families or foster families, as well as for children who have become too old for foster care. The Envision Bay Area initiative, that took place from 2010-2012, aimed to build a community of both leaders and constituents that made daily decisions based on what would be best for the environment. The Silicon Valley Community Foundation made use of YouChoose Bay Area in order to make this initiative successful. The work from this initiative ultimately “convinced the local planning agencies to set higher greenhouse gas emissions than their staff had initially recommended.”

The Silicon Valley Community Foundation is currently responsible for $2.9 million in assets and has over 1,600 philanthropic funds.

– Jordyn Horowitz

Sources: The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Silicon Valley Community Foundation
Photo: Future Partners

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How To Pick A Charity To Give To

There are many great charities out there doing much-needed work to reduce global poverty. Here are some tips on deciding which charity you should give to.

1. Clarify your beliefs

Before you start looking for a charity to give to, be sure you know what you believe. Figure out what missions matter the most to you and your family. Do you care the most about protecting the environment? Fighting human trafficking? Providing education? Once you have selected the category that you care about most, you can begin to research the different methods of solving that problem.

2. Start broad

Use websites like CharityNavigator.org, GuideStar.org or GiveWell.org to learn how different charities in the category you picked spend their money. Sites like these aggregate tax information and other records you can use to learn how different charities spend their money.

3. Do your research

Find a clear description of the charity’s mission, programs and achievements. Figure out what their goals are, how they measure their success and how they use that information to function better. If you can’t find this information easily, be wary. But be aware that some problems are hard to solve. Don’t place a dollar sign on a human life. Some organizations invest thousands of dollars rescuing women and children from slavery because, simply put, extracting slaves is hard and expensive.

Nancy Lublin CEO of DoSomething.org  knows that “Low overhead doesn’t necessarily mean an organization is awesome at fighting poverty, or that its turnover is low and its people productive. And it certainly doesn’t guarantee that the group is spending wisely.”

Lublin cited Apple as an example from the for-profit world of a company with high overhead but incredible products.

“According to Apple’s Q4 2008 report, 78% of its expenses were sales, general, and administrative — the corporate equivalent of overhead. Seventy-eight percent! Yet nobody flinches,” she wrote.

4. Contact the charity and become personally involved

If you’re going to establish a long-term relationship with an organization, take the time to call them, or at least email them about your interest. Best of all, take the time to become personally involved in the charity you donate to allows you incomparable insight into how they operate.

“Be very reluctant to give to strangers,” Dan Moore, vice president of public affairs for GuideStar, an online source of financial information on charities told NBC. “If you know the organization and you know their work, you will know with some degree of confidence that your gift will be put to good use.”

5. Trust your gut

If an organization seems questionable, don’t give. Find a group that you feel comfortable supporting and give what you can.

Picking a charity to support can be daunting but taking the time to give well is incredibly rewarding.

– Sally Nelson

Sources: Fast Company, NBC
Photo: Infiniti

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NGOs in the DRC Reject Drones

Drones buzz through the skies of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to monitor this mineral-rich country that has been racked with war for 20 years. The U.N. Stabilization Mission, or MONUSCO,  a peacekeeping operation with over 21,000 personnel, brought two of these Unmanned Aerial Vehicles into action in the DRC last April. MONUSCO then offered to share drone-collected information with humanitarian NGOs working in the DRC.

The offer was emphatically rejected.

The NGOs reject drones because MONUSCO is a military operation. International NGOs are humanitarian and as such are bound to the principles of “neutrality, impartiality and operational independence.” Using drones for both military and humanitarian information gathering compromises these principles.

A July 14, 2014 statement released by NGOs working in the DRC pointed to the potential for data gathered with a humanitarian objective nevertheless informing combat operations.

2006’s guidelines for how humanitarian actors and MONUSCO are to coordinate has recently been revised, but IRIN reports that a final draft “does not directly address the use of info gained through drones.”

NGOs are concerned that they have no guarantee the info will come from non-drone sources.

Drones have served both military and non-military purposes in the past. For example, while one drone might use its infrared camera to search for people congregating at night (a sign of an attack brewing), another drone might be tasked with monitoring the geological activity of a volcano.

On May 5, 2014, drones in Rwanda that were flying over Lake Kivu relayed information indicating a ferry had capsized, leaving 20 people in the water struggling for their lives. Rescuers saved 14 people who probably would have drowned otherwise.

However, the issue here is not whether drones are capable of serving a non-military function; humanitarian organizations know they would find information gathered by drones helpful. The issue is that, according to certain core principles, humanitarian NGOs cannot take sides in a war.

The drones’ many uses could embroil the NGOs in the conflict because MONUSCO might use “humanitarian information” for military purposes.

The region these drones patrol is highly unstable, with many armed groups fomenting conflict there. Last June, members of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, a militia group with a large presence in the DRC, proclaimed their desire to disarm and negotiate. Provided the offer to disarm was genuine, some thought this might stabilize the region to a certain extent.

However, recent attacks on barracks in Kinshasa by a separate group highlight how one party’s exit from the conflict can hardly be used to foretell an end to the larger conflict. Because of this, drones will remain a fixture in the DRC’s skies.

-Ryan Yanke

Sources: IRIN, BBC News, The New York Times
Photo: BBC

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Soccer Star Creates Kanu Heart Foundation

Nwankwo Kanu is not only the former captain of the Nigerian national soccer team, but he also goes to a great length in doing charity work. Born in Nigeria, he started to show his soccer talent on the Dutch Ajax team by scoring 25 goals in 54 performances in his first year in Ajax. He also led the Nigerian team win the Olympic Gold Medal in 1996. He was named African Footballer of the Year in the same year. In his charity path, he launched Kanu Heart Foundation, which he claimed as his proudest achievement. At the same time, he is a UNICEF ambassador.

Just after winning the Olympics, he was diagnosed with a heart valve defect, underwent surgery and did not return to his career for almost a year. Because of his experience, he started his Kanu Heart Foundation to make sure children with heart problems are able to obtain heart surgeries, especially underprivileged children in Africa. Through this organization, hospitals provide surgical heart transplants, laser surgeries and more.

“These kids remind me of when I was growing up as a little boy,” Kanu said to BBC Sport. “There’s no amount of success on the football pitch that can give me more smiles than the numbers of lives I’ve touched.” He wants to put smiles on the face of every child who deserves the chance to pursue their dreams.

According to its official website, the Kanu Heart Foundation has undertaken 452 open heart surgeries since the foundation was first established in 2000. All sponsored surgeries are done in countries such as England, Israel, India and Sudan. The Cardiac Specialist Hospital will offer free surgeries for children from 1 to 12 years old and those for adults will be subsidized.

– Jing Xu

Sources: BBC News, Wikipedia, Kanu Heart Foundation 1, Kanu Heart Foundation 2
Photo: Connect Nigeria

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Planet Aid: Humanitarian Aid and Sustainability

planet_aid
What is yellow and found in most American cities? Planet Aid bins. Founded in Boston in 1977, Planet Aid was at first a small operation. Donations became so plentiful that the nonprofit had to upgrade its office space and nondescript drop boxes.

Planet Aid’s mission is to inspire people to “bring about worldwide and environmental progress.” The organization is part of the Humana People to People Federation, a source of resources for 32 aid groups working across the globe. Every year, about 12 million people are benefited by Federation projects.

Though Federation aid groups provide an array of services, Planet Aid focuses on collecting and recycling used clothing and supporting development projects.

Discarded clothing is reduced to two functions: sitting in a landfill and creating carbon emissions. About nine percent of American methane emissions are produced by landfills. Over eight percent of landfills are rubber, leather and textiles. Recycling clothes is a step toward reducing the nation’s carbon footprint, but it is also expensive.

Local governments are hesitant to cover the cost, and so Planet Aid steps in. Their bright yellow boxes are beacons of light for environmentally conscious old-jean-holding citizens everywhere. Once collected, some of the clothing is shipped off to domestic thrift stores.

Most, though, are taken to overseas buyers. Why sell overseas? The market is huge. Quality shirts, pants and shoes can be sold to someone in need for a couple dollars.

If people need them so badly, why sell? Because charity can wreak havoc on local economies. It’s better to stock a merchant’s shelves with affordable goods than to put him or her out of business.

Planet Aid revenues are invested in development projects that meet the goals of their mission: “strengthening communities,” “reducing poverty,” “increasing health awareness” and “promoting small enterprise,” among others.

The organization runs projects in 15 countries. So far, Planet Aid has taught 9,500 teachers in India and Africa. From 2010 to 2011 alone, it provided over 5.5 million dollars in micro-finance to Indian women. It raised HIV/AIDS awareness, established a club that teaches sustainable farming practices and founded several vocational schools.

Everything is funded by profits made from clothing and monetary donations. Through its work, Project Aid has shown that humanitarian aid and environmental sustainability are not conflicting interests.

– Olivia Kostreva

Sources: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Planet Aid 1, Planet Aid 2, Planet Aid 3
Photo: Bethesda 365

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The Effects of Poverty on the Adult Brain

effects of poverty on the adult brain

A recent study examined the effects of poverty on the adult brain and how it is influenced by childhood development. Results of the study showed that children from poor families performed more poorly on academic tests later in life. Furthermore, the study found that children who dealt with stress inducing factors, such as poor housing, in addition to poverty performed the worst of all tested subjects.

What does this mean for the future of children that are presently living in extreme poverty? With more than 1 billion children worldwide who lack one or more essential needs critical to survival and development, this can present even more problems in the future.

Most children living in extreme poverty face stress-inducing factors in addition to poverty. According to UNICEF, 101 million children currently do not attend primary school, and 148 million children under the age of 5 are underweight. A total of 270 million children worldwide do not have access to health care, and one out of five do not have access to clean drinking water, according to CARE, a nonprofit aiding in the fight against extreme poverty.

With more than 300 million children worldwide chronically hungry and 90 percent suffering from long-term malnourishment, these stressors can have lasting effects on their intellectual performance, and subsequently their financial stability, as adults.

For every additional year of primary school in developing countries, a girl’s wages are raised by 10 to 20 percent. This shows a direct correlation between education and income.

Children from poorer households are three times more likely to not attend school than those from wealthy homes. The largest population of non-attending school aged children is in sub-Saharan Africa, where 45.5 million children do not attend primary school. Much of this is caused by poverty, as many parents and families cannot afford required school fees and supplies to send their children to school.

Extreme poverty certainly involves several stress inducing factors besides lack of money, and these issues compound the problem of intellectual performance further. According to Professor K. Luan Phan, the author of the study, “the stress-burden of growing up poor may be an underlying mechanism that accounts for the relationship between poverty as a child and how well your brain works as an adult.”

By this same logic, helping these children out of extreme poverty today will lead to more intellectual men and women of tomorrow – men and women who will have the education needed to help other children escape poverty.

– Christopher Kolezynski

Sources: PsyBlog, The Borgen Project, CARE, Compassion
Photo: Flickr

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The Seva Foundation

Subas Maya Rai lives in a remote area of Nepal. A few years back she became blind from cataracts in both eyes, and from that point on lived life in a vulnerable and isolated darkness. Having to rely on her husband, she wanted to give up hope, and began waiting for death to take her.

Her husband began hearing news that a Seva-sponsored eye camp would be coming, and together, they made a four-day journey by foot to the camp. The surgery took two days, and after a few days, Subas removed her bandages and was finally able to see again.

Starting out as a gathering of friends and colleagues at the Waldenwoods Conference Center located near Ann Arbor Michigan, The Seva Foundation began as a group of people looking to be of service. The conference was comprised of health professionals and activists who were introduced to Dr. G Venkataswamy, a retired eye surgeon who dreamed of making cataract surgery ubiquitous. Seva was soon born, focused on restorative eyesight methods.

The vision of Seva comprises the promotion of a world of people who are healthy and autonomous.

The Seva Foundation is best known for eyesight restoration to more than 3.5 million people in need of vital eye care service.

They have operated in 20 countries including Bangladesh, sub-Saharan Africa, Cambodia, Nepal and Tibet, and have operated with Native Americans in the United States. They support community outreach to spread awareness of services available for proper eye care. With their Global Sight Initiative, the organization collaborates on an international level to increase the efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability of its 50 partner eye-care institutions around the world. Its methods, in turn, increase the overall productivity and quality of eye-care treatments.

Yet, performing eye surgery requires trained staff/volunteers and up-to-date equipment. In response to the needs of the poor, Seva brings its vision centers to local communities and trains ophthalmologists, ophthalmic assistants and community health workers to use specialized equipment in order to exercise quality care.

The ability to bring people together in service of others is an innate quality of this organization. It stands to serve those who are underserved, and shines a beacon to those stranded in the dark.

– Ashley Riley

Sources: Seva Foundation 1, Seva Foundation 2
Photo: SFGate