Help volunteers tackle community problems
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Updates from the Field:
Updates from the Field (or Progress Reports) on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.com by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
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Index of Updates from the Field
New Heights in Volunteerism Project: The University, Volunteerism and Solidarity Groups
By Gina Pezzano - Project Facilitator, August 14, 2008 04:49 PM
Colombian youth are not future leaders - they are present leaders taking action now thanks to the support this program has received from donors like you. UNINORTE, with support from Partners of the Americas and Global Giving, provided a unique opportunity for 20 students to formulate and lead projects addressing social problems in their communities and to contribute to the strengthening of youth volunteerism and group solidarity in Colombia at a time of tremendous challenge and opportunity.
Prior to working in their communities, the program creates important spaces to allow university students to discuss social problems and to learn more about the social realities they face. These spaces also provide a forum for students to actively participate in their communities by applying well known strategies for alleviating the problems they discuss. As such, UNINORTE’s Barranquilla program has formed the necessary alliances to advance students’ volunteer participation in local projects with high social impact on vulnerable groups in the region.
To meet these objectives, students in the Caribbean region of Colombia were first organized in a Training and Reflection Group. Upon concluding their training, they worked with seven different civil society organizations to learn about programs in different areas of Barranquilla that address different social needs. They were charged with designing, training and leading activities to help address these needs.
The seven projects in which the students participated include:
1. The Best of Barranquilla, Thanks to You: A citizen participation project that involves 150 merchants in the recuperation of public spaces in the Los Caños region of Barranquilla. Entity: DAMAB.
2. Social Leadership and Citizen Participation: A project to train 32 community leaders in citizen participation methodologies in Malambo, a community of 192,000 inhabitants, including citizen oversight and monitoring of public servants in order to protect their rights. Entity: Foundation Huellas de ACESCO.
3. Artisan Women of South Barranquilla: A training project for 29 women artisans who produce crafts for export to improve their entrepreneurial skills and ability to develop producer cooperatives. Entity: Triple A.
4. Movies and Culture: Promotion of community cultural activities conducted by Cinemateca del Caribe , as part of an education strategy in poor neighborhoods in Barranquilla. Entity: Cinemateca del Caribe .
5. Partners in Education for Barranquilla: An alliance of private enterprises that construct new schools in impoverished sectors of the city. Entity: ARGOS.
6. Youth with a Future: A project to improve the quality of life for youth from low socio-economic backgrounds through the development of social skills and healthy habits. Entity: Children International.
7. Youth with the Right to Have Rights: A psycho-affective recovery project for 75 children and youth from at-risk neighborhoods in Barranquilla. Entity: CEDESOCIAL.
Your continued support will help these projects advanced. Donations will go to those projects with the greatest need and impact. However, you may also specify a specific project for support.
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Partners of the Americas and the people of Colombia thank you.
By Matthew Clausen - Vice President for Partnership Development, August 16, 2007 06:45 PM
Small acts are going a long way in Colombia!
At the end of last year you saw a challenge and an opportunity and you chose to help make a difference. It worked. Thanks to you and 119 other generous contributors, we met the GlobalGiving 100-donor challenge and leveraged $5000 for the effort, bringing total donations for the New Heights in Volunteerism project in Colombia to-date to over $8000. New Heights is a revolutionary program that directs volunteers to where help is needed most. Your help enables more children to read, more battered women to find shelter and more ill to find comfort. One example of how Partners and volunteerism make a difference in Colombia stands out...
David Tapiero is not a typical Colombian. In a country where half the population lives in poverty, David grew up in Ciudad Bolivar, one of the poorest neighborhoods of the capital city of Bogotá, where he, like so many others, lived among gang violence and abject poverty. However, these were not the only obstacles that David faced. He was born with a disorder that eventually causes blindness, and at the age of 19, he got an infection that left him completely deaf.
In a country that offers almost no resources to disabled people, facing deafblindness and devastating poverty at first seemed insurmountable. However, David’s passion for learning and his great fortune of finding an organization dedicated to promoting the rights of deafblind people, has enabled him to not only pursue personal goals, but also to volunteer his time and act as a mentor and inspiration for others.
David is part of a Colombian volunteer network called PESCAR that acts as an on call resource to deafblind people and provides support services for various foundations. David’s spirit of volunteerism and his upbeat determination to reach out to others is contagious, but two months ago, David found he did not afford even the two dollars a day for transportation that would allow him to continue studying and working with PESCAR.
Partners of the Americas believes that people like David deserve a chance to make a difference in their own lives and the lives of others. Through a small scholarship from the
Florida-Colombia Partners of the Americas, David is able to continue studying and motivating and teaching other deafblind people to overcome their disabilities and be an inspiration to us all.
What comes next in the New Heights in Volunteerism project? In the spirit of leveraging resources, and using leveraged resources to get even more support, Partners is using the money raised so far to seek additional resources from the Colombian government, universities, nonprofit organizations and the private sector to continue to build a comprehensive program to promote volunteerism in Colombia and put dedicated volunteers to work to solve the most pressing local needs. Your contribution demonstrates our commitment to the project and is absolutely crucial in mobilizing additional resources. Please stay tuned for more information, and once again, thank you.
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