Feel Good Friday - International Sanctuary

I learned about today's Feel Good Friday organization, International Sanctuary, because a coworker volunteers there and just came back from a trip to India. Here's what you need to know.

International Sanctuary, or iSanctuary, is an organization that "empowers young women rescued from human trafficking through education, income, health care, and community." Founded in 2007 by Stephanie Pollaro, "iSanctuary has served hundreds of young women in Mumbai, India and Orange County, California." Mumbai has one of Asia's largest red light districts and Orange County is a major stop on the trafficking circuit.

The problem of human trafficking is explained with some shocking statistics from the iSanctuary website: 45.8 million people are enslaved in the world today, 80% are women and over 50% are children. Every country, including the United States, is affected by this $32 billion a year industry.

The mission of iSanctuary "is to empower people escaping human trafficking to embrace their true identity and worth." The vision is to have 10 new sanctuaries worldwide by 2020 and funds are currently being raised for a location in Uganda.

The existing sanctuaries in Mumbai and Orange County are the next step for survivors after they are rescued and their basic needs such as shelter, food and clothing are met. iSanctuary provides medical and dental care, education, counseling, life skills training, micro loans and financial training, university scholarships, job training and employment! Since inception, iSanctuary has served over 300 women and girls and enabled them to create better lives for themselves and their children.

Watch this 2:09 minute introductory video to see the women whose lives are being changed and, if you like what you see, support the work of iSanctuary by volunteering your time, donating your money or shopping for Purpose Jewelry, made by survivors.

Liking the International Sanctuary Facebook page and following them on Twitter @isanctuary are great ways to stay in the loop and share the work being done to combat human trafficking.

Feel Good Friday - Janwaar Castle

This week, I turned to one of my sources for Feel Good Friday stories, Karma Tube, and I'm very glad I did. It led me to today's organization, Janwaar Castle.

Located near New Delhi, India, Janwaar Castle is a community organization founded in 2016 by Ulrike Reinhard with one purpose, "to uplift the lives of the villagers in Janwaar, especially those of the Janwaar children." The main activity used to bring the children together? Skateboarding!

In this 7:30 min video, the Barefoot Skateboarders of India, you'll see how skateboarding together brakes down barriers between children, empowers girls to interact with the boys, and increases all of the children's participation in school due to the rule, no government school = no skateboarding.

Next month (Nov. 12 - 14) Janwaar Castle will be hosting a skateboard challenge that will bring together girls and boys ages 6 - 16 from all across India to compete and to celebrate skateboarding. There will also be trips to the jungle and education about nature and village life.

While the skatepark is the main focus, the people of Janwaar Castle are also fundraising to build an infrastructure to support access to clean water year round. Another project is the Rural Changemakers campaign, the first step of which is "a compilation of photographs of children from Janwaar, talking about the goals they have in life, their passions and their hopes." You can see those photos here.

The goal is for children to be empowered to move forward with their own learning. That's embodied by the principles of the organization, some of which include: resilience over strength, practice over theory and we over me.

If you like what you see you can help Janwaar Castle by making a donation. You can also keep current by liking their Facebook page and following them on Twitter @Janwaar_Castle. Now take off your shoes, get on your skateboard and go make some friends!

Feel Good Friday - KIOO Project

Happy Feel Good Friday! It's a new year and no doubt you took some photos during this holiday season to document your experience and create a memory for your future self. Today we're going to talk about an organization that teaches photography to vulnerable children around the world.

The KIOO Project was founded by photographer Babita Patel after a trip to Haiti brought her in contact with children who had never seen photographs of themselves before. The mission, as stated on their website is a simple one, "to teach photography to children from communities with limited creative resources."

Right now KIOO Project offers workshops in Kenya, India and Haiti and their vision is "for every child to develop self-confidence by discovering who they are through photography."

You can hear and see how this is affecting the children by watching this video of students in Kenya or this video of students in Haiti. In their workshop in India, girls were taught about photography during the first week of the program. They then developed leadership and presentation skills by teaching photography the boys who came in the second week of the program.

If you like the work KIOO Project is doing you can support them by buying some of the student photos, straight up donating money, or liking their Facebook page and following them on Twitter @kiooproject.

Now get out there and do something with those photos of yours!

Feel Good Friday - Parikrma Humanity Foundation

A year ago, Feel Good Friday highlighted the work of Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani advocate for girls education and today she shares the Nobel Peace Prize with another Feel Good Friday subject, Indian child rights campaigner and founder of GoodWeave, Kailash Satyarthi! On this Feel Good Friday we're going to share more good news about education in this part of the world.

The Parikrma Humanity Foundation was founded in 2003 in Bangalore by Shukla Bose. As stated on their website, "Parikrma's ambition is to ensure that quality education is accessible to marginalized children."

Children from the poorest slums in Bangalore typically go to government run schools, when they go at all. The education provided is substandard and dropout rates are high. To combat this Parikrma's model focuses not only on delivering top quality education with an emphasis on learning English, but also 3 meals a day and comprehensive health care and family care.

Parikrma schools educate students from levels K-12, afterwards they provide scholarships to college or vocational training before placing the children in jobs. With four schools and 1500 students, Parikrma is making a huge difference in the lives of these children and their families!

To learn more you can read this in-depth article from the Christian Science Monitor and watch a short video with fabulous music that shows how much change you can affect with 1/2 a day's salary.

To get involved as an international volunteer check this link. As always, an easy way to keep yourself educated about what Parikrma is doing is by liking their Facebook page or following them on Twitter @parikrma

Feel Good Friday - Wello Water

I've got water on the brain. Not in a take-me-to-the-ER bad way, in a good way. 

I've been reviewing the footage from our Inspiration Safari interview with Gemma Bulos, director of the Global Women's Water Initiative, in order to make a screening deadline. She's taken the innovative approach of working with the people in the communities she serves to create solutions to the water crisis. So has Cynthia Koenig the creator of Wello, which is why we're talking water on Feel Good Friday.

Cynthia Koenig created Wello and worked with people in India to create a more effective and ergonomic way to transport water. Their mission is "to effectively deliver clean water to a thirsty world." Great, you think, but why the focus on water collection? 

photo credit: Kushan Dave 2013

If you've done any travel in developing countries, you've seen women walking with containers of water on their heads. While it make look picturesque, it is literally a pain in the neck! As described on Wello website, "The time spent fulfilling this basic need keeps many children out of school and prevents women from carrying out all the domestic and income generating work for which they are responsible. In much of the developing world, it is often necessary to walk five miles (8km) or more every day to fetch water. In the dry season, it is not uncommon to walk twice this distance. Collecting water can be dangerous too. The traditional method of carrying water – carrying a 5 gallon (20 liter) water bucket on the head – can severely damage the spine, causing severe pain and even leading to complications during childbirth. In some countries, walking to find water exposes people to the dangers of land mines."

photo credit: wello 2013

The Wello team interviewed 1500 community members in order to develop the WaterWheel. What does that mean for the people who use it? "By giving people easier access to potable water, the WaterWheel frees up valuable time, and in the process, removes barriers that prevent children from going to school and empowers women to engage in more productive activities. Research shows that when women have extra time, they choose to spend it on activities that boost family income, education, health, and wellbeing. Women with even a few years of education have smaller, healthier families, and are more likely to send their children to school. Female education is a key means of breaking the cycle of poverty."

For further information you can read articles in The Guardian or Humanosphere, watch the short film Hello Wello or watch last year's TedxTalk, which includes the short. As with most of the groups I profile, Wello has a Facebook page and they'd like it if you like it. 

Feel Good Friday - Gulabi Gang

If a vigilante group has vision and mission statements, are they really vigilantes? Men who have felt (literally) the wrath of Sampat Pal Devi and her Gulabi Gang would say yes.

The Gulabi, or Pink Gang - so named because the members wear pink saris - was founded in 2006 the Banda District of Uttar Pradesh in Northern India. According to their website, "this region is one of the poorest districts in the country and is marked by a deeply patriarchal culture, rigid caste divisions, female illiteracy, domestic violence, child labour, child marriages and dowry demands."

"The Gulabi Gang was initially intended to punish oppressive husbands, fathers and brothers, and combat domestic violence and desertion. The members of the gang would accost male offenders and prevail upon them to see reason. The more serious offenders were publicly shamed when they refused to listen or relent. Sometimes the women resorted to their lathis, if the men resorted to use of force."

The big stick smack downs of abusive husbands and corrupt officials are a last resort but knowing they are a very real possibility makes people listen to what Sampat Pal has to say. Since it began, tens of thousands of women have joined the gang, whose mission is to "protect the powerless from abuse and fight corruption to ensure basic rights of the poor in rural areas and discourage traditions like child-marriages." 

The group has started a school to educated the girls and boys in the district and they've bought sewing machines. The idea being, if young girls can earn income for the family through sewing projects, they family is less likely to marry them off at an early age for dowry money.

You can watch a short video about the group here or check their video page to see more in-depth coverage. As always, you can like them on Facebook if you like them.

Are the women of the Gulabi Gang justified in what they're doing or do you agree with the quote most often attributed to Gandhi, "An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind"? 

Feel Good Friday - Drop Dead

Now that I've got your attention, please know I wish you a long and fabulous life.

Drop Dead is the name of a one-man NGO whose tag line is, "Save every drop or drop dead". The drops in question are water.

According to Wikipedia, "Aabid Surti is a National Award-winning Indian author who has earned accolades within India and abroad as a painter, author, cartoonist, journalist,environmentalist, playwright and screenwriter." As if those activities don't keep him busy enough, he spends every Sunday traveling around New Delhi with a plumber and a volunteer fixing people's leaky faucets for free.

Why? A culmination of events: reading that by 2025 more than 40 countries are expected to experience water crisis, learning a tap that drips once every second wastes 270 gallons of water a month (!) and seeing a friend with a leaky faucet who couldn't be bothered to call a plumber to fix it.

He's been making his Sunday water rounds since 2007 and it's estimated that he and his team have save 1.5 million gallons of water since the project started. The story is explained in greater detail by his son on his blog, superaalifragilistic.

To learn more about Aabid's creative endeavors and view his gallery, visit his website.

I'm going to leave you now to make sure none of my faucets are dripping and I highly suggest you do the same!

India - Back in San Francisco

Hey All,

Well, I’m back in San Francisco after a manic week of touring India and London.

Our trip to the North was jam packed and quite frankly, it’s all becoming blurred together. Forts, palaces, temples and mosques. Everything seems to be carved of sandstone and marble and have a story behind it.

The good thing about being on a tour bus is that you get from one place to the other with no messing around, the bad thing is that you are an easy target for the hawkers, “Hello, what country? 100 rupee, only 100. Okay 50 rupee. 10 rupee, 10. 10 rupee… hello.”

Delhi is a huge city filled with people and traffic and huge paved roads. The only difference is there really are cows just walking around, grazing on the median. For those of you who live in SF, imagine that cows are walking around on the median on Van Ness instead of homeless people with cardboard signs. Occasionally have one sleeping in the lane of traffic and you’ve got the picture.

We were touring one mosque in Delhi when our guide said it was time to go. He told us that one of the security guards said the Imam (spiritual leader) was on his was to the mosque to give a speech. He asked our guide where we were from and he casually replied Russia before getting us all to leave. As the bus drove away, we saw the Imam walking along, surrounded by security guards headed towards the mosque. Our guide said he gives quite “fiery” speeches and it was best if we got going… that’s really the closest we came to any drama.

We only spent a morning in Agra and it was mainly to see the Taj Mahal. Contrary to newspaper reports from December, it was not camouflaged. It looks just like it does in all the pictures you’ve seen and being there was another surreal experience. Kind of like going to Machu Picchu in Peru. You’ve seen so many pictures of it, it’s hard to believe you’re really there. Perhaps having to get up at 4:00am to catch the train and being disoriented added to the mystical quality but it was quite impressive. Unfortunately for Tom in our group, I fear his biggest memory will be of being stung by wasps. There are big… and I mean BIG wasp nests hanging from various parts of the building. It’s all well and good until they start flying around your head.

On the inside are replicated tombs of Shah Jahan (who had the Taj Mahal built) and his wife Mumtaz, who it was built for. Inlaid with precious gems, it’s quite a site to see. However, there were many people who had no interest in that but instead, laid on the floor, trying to peel up the grating that covered the staircase down to the tombs where the real coffins were. The people on the floor kept getting whistled at by the guards and would move away only for a moment before getting back on the floor and peeling up the grating.

On to Jaipur in the afternoon, the journey there provided the biggest contrast between north and south. Instead of wall to wall palm trees and crows, there were open fields with women in saris walking along with bundles of sticks on their heads twice as wide as they were. Men stood at the side of the roads grazing sheep, discs of cow dung were stacked in all sorts of decorative manner drying to be used for fuel and camels stood in front of storefronts ready to pull a cart full of goods down the road. It did seem more like pictures you’ve seen of Pakistan or Afghanistan than the tropical India of the south.

At one fort, a woman was walking around under a veil with a tote bag that said “Attack Force Taliban”. I chose to observe and leave, though someone in our group stayed back to try and get a picture.

I’ve got about 14 rolls of film to develop and then sort through before everyone is tortured with, “here’s a bucket of sand, here’s another bucked of sand…”

I’m looking forward to seeing and/or talking to everyone soon but right now I’ve got about 7

tons of laundry calling my name.

Love,
Kristian

"Flies, flies, flies yeah... they're gonna get you"

Hey All,

Perhaps it was the cow or the goat or the dog and chickens but today’s worksite also had a lot of flies. No matter, we are a lean machine. We did much of what we do best… haul sand and gravel in rubber buckets. Also got to do a bit of concrete block making, which was not that hard of a job but was in the sun so a bit unpleasant. And that wraps up or last work day.

Tomorrow is a house dedication and then on Thursday we bust a move for the north.

In addition to the work, we have been having some fabulous die trips, “Hello, hello. Please, please, come, come.” So much repetition of words here. I thought one woman’s son was named Jay Jay but really his name is only Jay it was just being repeated for my benefit.

So the side trips… one afternoon we went to this resort about ½ hour to the north in Alapuzha. We went body surfing in the Arabian Sea. My timing is not so good. We also swam around in the pool, and then ate dinner while a band that was hired for us played Jingle Bells. It was almost a precious as hearing the little girls in the schools sing Skip to My Lou.

Over the weekend, we took a 4 hour bus ride to, oh hmm, a place that starts with a K and went on an overnight cruise of the backwaters. It was like floating through the pages of a National Geographic. So lush and beautiful. Palm trees lined the river while we cruised in luxury with our crew of three (for the 4 of us) brought us tender coconuts (I’m getting sick of the tender coconuts, we drink/eat them once if not twice a day. I have become very skilled at pouring coconut juice out while the people who had to climb up the tree to get it aren’t looking).

People along the river were out doing their business, laundry, dishes, fishing. Everyone smiled and waved and we sat there in awe feeling it was all a bit surreal. We were served a Keralan dinner on a banana leaf and then stopped off at the local moonshine shack to get this coconut beer made with fermented coconut juice… it was nasty, the palinca of Kerala.

We were caught in a rainstorm and all the boats tied up along a bank. Our boat which had myself, my roommate and Una and Nana, went out along the bank in the rain with flashlights visiting from boat to boat.

The next morning we stopped by a church and went walking through this village that doesn’t get a whole lot of western tourists. I am the Malayalam linguistic ambassador and said “sughamano” (how are you) to everyone we saw. Sometimes they answered, “sughamanu” (fine), other times they laughed and I almost always got the head waggle.

When you ask people questions they waggle their head in a way that kind of looks like “no” but not entirely and it means “yeah, I understand what you’re saying to me”, I think. Oh, Sister Sally and Leila from the Habitat committee are riding a scooter out on the street… precious.

We had some Habitat people join our boat on Sunday afternoon and we played musical chairs. When you lost, you had to perform a song or dance, though the last guy hopped around on the floor like a frog.

So, the backwaters of Kerala… do it. That’s all I’m saying. Flushing toilets, gourmet food, attentive crew. Our guys sang Malayalam songs to us in the evening when we were anchored for the night and the other boats could hear it. So, so great.

One of the women on the trip and I are giving everyone chola names in honor of the hotel next door, “Chola International”. No one else really gets it though. I am La Funny Girl and she is La Peety (in honor of her bringing Peet’s coffee and a French press with her).

Tonight we are having a group dinner and awards, I actually have to get going for the last group reflections, followed by happy hour on the roof then dinner.

Oh, also, riding an auto rickshaw through the town gives you and idea of what it must be like to be an ant and be running in a panic with all the other ants trying to go, you’re not sure where. Crazy, diesel fuel and chaos.

I may not get to check in with y’all before I’m back. So, stay strong.

See you soon.
Love,
Kristian

Namaste from Trivandrum

Hey All,

I know I mentioned it was hot... did I tell you it was humid? Lordy, I don't know how we keep
going.

Today, we were working on the house of the dance instructor. We spent all day hauling cinder blocks up this urine soaked alley in the sun. Wish you were here? Thank goodness for teamwork which made it go faster.

We eat lunch at this convent every day and today the students from the school gave a dance show for us. Sooooo precious. The girls had full-on costumes and makeup. It was an excellent break in the middle of the day.

Monday and Tuesday we worked at the Hindu family's house. Most of the people on the Habitat Committee here are Christian and they identify everyone by religion first and name second.

We actually spent those days demolishing their old house so the Habitat house can be built. The demolition of their house was a lesson in why the Habitat houses are built with concrete. In the demolition process we unearthed, a colony of cockroaches (huge), many hills of ants and several termite families.

Elsie I thought of you because one day I saw this woman had a red ant on her hat (these are some big ass ants too). I brushed it off and then looked on her back to make sure it went all the way to the ground. That's when I saw their were 5 red ants crawling in her ponytail. It was like a National Geographic special with me pulling ants out of her hair. Ugh.

It seems that two of the neighbors of this family take lessons from the dance instructor and we got a private show at the neighbors house. It was really amazing to see and made me realize why I came even though some people thought it questionable.

The group is very cool, ranging from 18-61. Most of the people are from SF. There are quite a few hotties in the group... and it's so hot, they work with their shirts off.

My roommate Lynda is a bit of a Meloney. Her luggage never made it to Mumbai but will finally be delivered tomorrow. Then she left her wallet on the bus and the driver rode around town on a motorcycle looking for her. Then she left her camera at the worksite but someone found it. We've got to keep an eye on her.

This morning I got up at 5:45 to go to the meditation on the roof and then do yoga. Can you believe it? I can hardly believe it myself. We had a yoga demonstration the other night and learned how to increase the semen flow, fix a compressed uterus, etc. It was rather hilarious.

Today during a block break I was learning a Malayalam song about a crow. So far I only know the first four lines but am expected to perform on the last night.

Overall, I'm having a good time. There are more things to be said, no doubt but someone else is waiting to write home and our self imposed happy hour starts on the roof right now.

I have to remember next time to tell you about the head waggle thing. It makes it very hard to understand if people understand you....

Love,
Kristian

India - I'm Here!

Hey All,

Well we made it. We’ve been flying, flying, flying… but are finally in Thiruvananthapuram (aka Trivandrum). Can I tell you… it is HOT! 90 something and humid. But I’m sitting in our air-conditioned hotel so it’s all good. We were greeted with Jasmine leis and fresh coconut juice.

Everyone from the trip is here and seems pretty cool. We’re still playing the getting to know you game. We’ve got a team orientation in ½ hour… I think it is going to be a Nana light-some-candles-talk-about-why-you’re-here-get-a-buddy special. Then later we have a Habitat orientation to find out what’s what.

New York was cool and I was able to hang out with Mark and Janna. Janna and I went to dinner at a new hip restaurant in the East Village called the Tasting Room (I think). So cool.

Okay… the group is converging so I’m going to sign out. Just wanted to let you know we arrived in one, tired, hot, sweaty piece.

Love,
Kristian