The exact toll in human life and critical infrastructure caused by the catastrophic earthquake that struck Haiti this week is still unknown. Heifer International, the nonprofit organization dedicated to ending hunger and poverty and caring for the Earth, reports that the Heifer staff in Haiti are accounted for and safe.

What is certain at this point is that once the rescue and relief efforts have been completed, there will be many years of rebuilding essential infrastructure and developing agricultural and commercial enterprises to sustain the Haitian people. Hope Equity helps provide long-term support for the work of Heifer International through endowments, or interests. Many of us are now looking for ways to help the survivors that have lost everything. Once the conditions on the ground have stabilized, there will be continue to be a need for long-term support as the nation begins to rebuild.

One way to support Heifer’s efforts in helping the people of Haiti put their lives back together is through country interests, which can provide support year after year. When you give to an interest those funds are invested and each year a percentage of the interest is made available to the area you have specified.

The following are links to the Haiti interests as well as Heifer’s Disaster Relief Interest, which is utilized to support the efforts of Heifer’s country programs after a major crisis.

Haiti Country Interest

Haiti: Carolyn W. Reynolds Interest

Haiti: Carolyn M. & Clarence R. Wenger Interest

Disaster Recovery Interest

It was an opportunity to travel outside of the country for the first time, and, more importantly, experience first hand the life-changing work of an organization dedicated to ending hunger and poverty.

Pat Brower, human resources manager for Heifer Foundation, traveled to the east African nation of Mozambique in October of 2008 for a study tour through the projects of Heifer International, an organization with a mission of ending hunger and poverty through education and livestock. “It reinforced how I feel about Heifer, how I feel about the Foundation, and what we are doing,” she said. “Seeing it first hand I can tell people: I’ve seen it, I know it’s working and I know it’s right.”

One of the most exciting and surprising aspects of the trip, Pat said, was the variety and diversity of the projects that they visited during the two-week journey. “We got a real overview of the Heifer projects and the model, what it takes to get one started, and how long and drawn out it can be,” she said.

Pat said there was considerable poverty in the cities, but once they traveled into the countryside the poverty became even more prevalent. However, the first project they visited, which was one of the very first projects in Mozambique, demonstrated what Heifer’s mission could mean to the lives of a group that worked hard for a few years in the project programs. “All the people in that village had matching polo shirts and women had matching kampulanas,” she said, which was very different from the dress of the projects that followed.

“One man talked about how he had two kids in the university and had been able to put a tin roof on his house. Another man had a bicycle and was very proud of owning a bicycle. A widow woman told us that because of her goats she was able to provide for her children and they were all doing well.”

After witnessing that success, Pat then saw some of the challenges faced by the newer projects, which contrasted sharply with the more established projects that had developed a better life for all the families involved. “There was some frustration that things weren’t happening so quickly,” she said. “An HIV/AIDS project first planted closer to the village, but it was farther away from the river so irrigation was difficult. Most of the crop failed and what they did grow, they sold. They didn’t get the idea that they should be eating the food they had grown to build up their bodies so they wouldn’t get so sick.”

“So then the second time they planted, a fellow in the community who had land close to the river said they could use his land. He taught them how to irrigate it. So this second time everything flourished and they started eating the vegetables.”
Heifer had to teach them how the different phases of the projects would bring about better nutrition and health for the families involved, she said.

One of the highlights for Pat was witnessing a “Passing on the Gift” ceremony where five families received three goats each from other families that had already experienced the life-changing gift of livestock.

Pat said one of the things that impressed her most was how one group had drawn pictures of the 12 Heifer Cornerstones showing how their project related to each of the Cornerstones. “The people who drew them explained what their picture was, which Cornerstone it was, and how it related,” she said. “They take it seriously. It’s not just something that they talk about. It’s how they build their project and understand what the Cornerstones are, probably even more so than we do.”

Everyone on the trip was treated like honored guests, greeted at each stop with singing and clapping, she said. “They would lead us to their central shelter area where there would be welcome speeches and they would want to know about us. They were just real outgoing and friendly. One of the poorest groups gave us gifts as we were leaving, a big bunch of bananas, sugar cane, two live chickens and a big basket of beans. You want to say, ‘oh no, it’s okay, you should keep it’ but you can’t. We rode back in the truck with two live chickens under our seats because you don’t want to insult them.”

What amazed Pat the most was how joyous the people were even though they sacrificed their time, their energy, and their produce to show her and her fellow travelers what their projects were all about. “If you don’t have very much and what little you do is keeping your family alive, for you to give part of that to total strangers you will never see again is very, very generous,” she said.

Since returning Pat has had friends, relatives and acquaintances frequently ask her what it was like, to which she would reply: “Do you have an hour?”
“I wouldn’t change the experience for anything,” she said. “I don’t know how to say what it was. It was amazing. It was awesome. It was a chance of a lifetime.”

Above: Charles Parsley, one of the unique GroBots being auctioned off

Dayton-based design firm, Real Art Design Group, has launched a Web site—www.recycledlifeforms.com—to auction off “green” art. All proceeds from the auction will go toward charitable causes through Hope Equity, an online sustainable giving initiative from the nonprofit organization Heifer Foundation.

Working from 1,200 pounds of garbage, the Real Art team handcrafted original steam punk style robot sculptures for the online auction, which begins this month. Made entirely of recycled materials, the GroBots are unique works of art that also contain areas to grow plant life.

“The GroBot project gave our team an opportunity to showcase their creativity and craftsmanship above and beyond the work they do on a daily basis for our clients,” said Chris Wire, owner of Real Art Design Group. “We wanted our work to incorporate all recycled materials to get people to think about how much we are contributing to our landfills on a regular basis and to consider how some of the garbage could be reused.”

Friends, family and clients of Real Art will receive a GroBot poster to announce the launch of the Web site. The poster is part of the annual New Year gift Real Art sends each year.

“We’re hoping that the initial mailing has a viral effect so we can raise a substantial amount of money for the causes we’re supporting through Hope Equity,” said Wire.

The proceeds from every GroBot auction go directly to the charitable causes Real Art selected through Hope Equity, which is an online component of Heifer Foundation’s mission of ending hunger and poverty and caring for the earth. Its unique online Micro-Endowment™ model invests these contributions and makes a portion of the return available to selected donor-designated charities on an annual basis.

The GroBot auctions begin January 16, 2009, and will continue over the next few months. The site is launching with ten GroBots but more will be added to the site as the initial auctions come to an end.

For additional information about the GroBots, visit www.recycledlifeforms.com.

About Real Art:
Real Art Design Group, Inc. is a full-service design firm specializing in innovative design solutions for real business problems. Integrating creative and strategic thinking, Real Art serves a wide variety of clients within corporate, consumer products, high technology and entertainment industries locally, nationally and internationally. Real Art’s portfolio of work includes identity and brand development, print collateral, product development and interactive media. Supported by a staff of more than 40 highly skilled designers, web programmers and support staff, Real Art operates studios in Dayton, Ohio and Chicago, Illinois.

It was the barren dirt yards dotted with small patches of flowers that brought Dorothy Graham back to the Delta of her youth. Mozambique is more than 9,000 miles away from her childhood home in Marvell, Arkansas, yet the living conditions brought back a flood of memories and established for her an instant connection with the people and the land.

“They use hoes to cut their grass, so their yards are nothing but dirt because they cut all the grass out plus the children playing in it,” she said. “And I can remember growing up, that’s the way my mother did our yard.” Dorothy Graham, the planned charitable giving officer for the nonprofit organization Heifer Foundation, had traveled to Mozambique in October of 2008 to take part in a study tour of the projects of Heifer International, an organization dedicated to ending hunger and poverty through education and livestock.

Finding home an ocean away

“I was thinking about my childhood a lot when I was traveling in Africa because I’m from the Delta,” she said. “Anyone familiar with the Delta knows that it is poor. Growing up, I realized I was poor, but it wasn’t until after I graduated and moved to Little Rock that I realized how poor I actually was.”

Dorothy was quick to point out that while she was considered poor growing up, it was still nothing like the challenges and conditions faced by many of the people she visited on her journey. “Poverty is different here in the United States than it is in the third world countries,” she said. “Even with the poorest people here, it’s just not the same. They have nothing. We at least have the government to assist us. They don’t have that because their governments are so poor.”

Her own personal heritage also made the trip more poignant. “Being an African-American, I have always dreamed of going to Africa,” Dorothy said. “When I first started working [at the Foundation] and realized I had the opportunity to go to different countries around the world, I made up my mind then ‘I want to go to Africa.’ I can’t even describe what it meant to me.”

Witnessing the triumphs and struggles

The first project group Dorothy and her fellow study tour members visited had been involved with Heifer the longest. “You could really tell a difference between them and the other groups that were just starting out, but yet what impressed me about that first group is that, yeah they knew they were doing better, but they still wanted to do more. They talked about how they have the animals and are able to farm their land and can put tin roofs over the top of their houses, but now they realized they needed an education.”

The people were very eager to share with Dorothy and other members of the group exactly how their lives had changed. “In the first village we visited with a man who was so happy he could put a tin roof over his house because of the goats,” she said. “This one lady was able to build a house big enough to store extra grains of rice. You could tell they were a proud people. “

Some of the newer projects were still experiencing the challenges and obstacles that come with teaching and training people in new techniques in livestock and agriculture. “When we went to the fish farm they seemed a little disheartened that they had tried this before and the first time it had completely failed,” she said. “So this was their second attempt. It’s a slow process, but you can tell they wanted it to happen overnight. “

All of the trials and tribulations were showing so much on their faces, Dorothy said.
That particular group needed some words of encouragement, and Dorothy was the one elected to give them a speech. “It gave me the opportunity to tell them right then, ‘don’t be discouraged, you are doing good. You started with three families receiving three goats and as they grow you pass those on to other families, so you will eventually get to where you want the outcome to be.’”

Dorothy was also impressed with how Heifer Mozambique stressed the importance of getting people to think differently about their land, resources and potential.
“Many people still use slash and burn techniques to clear land,” she said.
“They have the resources that they need, they just don’t know how to implement them. They have the land, but don’t know how to cultivate it to grow the things that they need.”

The people spoke primarily Portuguese and native dialects, but the nonverbal communication made an impression on Dorothy. “I couldn’t speak the language so the smiles and handshakes was how we interacted,” she said. “They were very generous. This one village expected us to stay all day, but we were only going to be there a couple of hours because we were going to visit another village. But they gave us what they had – two chickens, a bushel of beans, a big bunch of bananas, and I don’t know how many sugar canes they gave us. I just thought, ‘wow, you may go to bed tonight without eating any dinner, but you are giving us this.’” When asked how this made her feel, Dorothy replied with only one word: “Humbled.”

Working with a purpose

Dorothy said she feels blessed to work at Heifer Foundation because it gives her more of an opportunity to help people that she felt a kinship with in Mozambique. “It’s a cliché to say it’s a blessing to be a blessing, but it really is and I enjoy being able to help someone every day,” she said. “This is more than a job to me. It’s a job with a purpose, with a meaning. I am doing something to make a difference. Now I can share my experiences through my eyes. I love it.”

Shortly after arriving back in Little Rock, Arkansas, Dorothy closed on the purchase of her first home. She knew immediately what her friends and family could get for her house warming. “I don’t want any gifts,” she said. “Anybody that wants to give me something I am going to ask them to put it in my Micro-Endowment through the Hope Equity initiative here at Heifer Foundation. It’s set up for the Delta, AIDS/HIV and Mozambique. That money will go to help the people in Mozambique whom I saw that really need it. They do need our help and we can make a difference.”
-Jeremy Glover

WiLD is a Heifer International program that trains women around the world in livestock care as well as helping them work together to overcome social and cultural barriers and, ultimately, assist them in moving toward self-reliance.

Award Category 1: Grassroots Achievements

Africa
Callista Kadzere of Zimbabwe was selected as a winner. Callista stood out from all the candidates of her region because of her community leadership and her dedication to the empowerment of her fellow women. Her creativity and assertiveness enabled her to negotiate with authorities in a rather strict culture for her fellow women to have access to land for gardening. She organized and led women’s groups for economic self-reliance. Her dedication to building the self-confidence of women and to win men’s support in a non-confrontational way makes her outstanding. She is a role model for her community, especially for women.

Asia/South Pacific
Sonam Yurden of China was selected as a winner. Sonam has shown extraordinary endurance in bringing herself and her family above a poverty line. Beginning with very small input, she used her creativity to diversify her family’s livelihood. Her agricultural and weaving skills enabled her not only to establish her family economically, but also helped others to escape from poverty. Sonam is a strong and dedicated community organizer. She enabled many families to manage and organize a weaving project while simultaneously promoting women’s economic empowerment. Her leadership makes her a great achiever.

Central Eastern Europe
Anush Ghazaryan of Armenia was selected as a winner. Anush has a moving story as a true agent of holistic community development. She encouraged and mobilized older and younger generations equally for community development. Her work as a trainer and counselor for youth has opened up opportunities for many to actively participate in community development and caring for their own environment. Her leadership in initiating and implementing organic farming as an approach to sustainable food systems is remarkable. Her commitment to support her fellow women in balancing domestic and farm work, her dedication to the Cornerstones, especially self-reliance and sustainability made her stand out.

Award Category 2: Meritorious Award
Tran Thi Kim Oanh of Vietnam was selected as a winner of the Meritorious Award. She is an incredible community development agent, who is dedicated to the success of others. She is an excellent organizer, trainer and encourager. She is committed to Heifer’s work to the extent of sacrificing her weekends to help communities and the self-help groups to establish and to build their capacities through training. Even though she works for the government, her voluntary work with Heifer is out of dedication to community empowerment. As a woman, as a mother, and as a professional, she learned how to balance worklife and family. She has become an example for many women in her communities.

Support the work of Heifer International’s WiLD programs by contributing to the following Interests:

WiLD Interest

Rosalee Sinn WiLD Interest

Mildred P. Lynan WiLD Interest

Heather DePaolo-Johnny Gender Equity Interest

Albania: Greenway Women’s Issues Interest

Illinois – Fair Food Project: Building Capacities for Community-Based Food Systems

Despite Illinois’ role as a major agricultural producer of commodity crops, half a million people in northern Illinois suffer food insecurity every year. In Chicago, one of the nation’s largest and most prosperous cities, an average of 88,000 residents per week seek emergency food assistance.

The Fair Food project will involve partnerships with seven community-based organizations that are committed to urban garden projects that will serve low-income youth and adults. With resources of training, seeds, livestock and small-scale infrastructure, this project will result in seven communities transforming the way 1,290 families access healthy food, generate income and reinvent regional food systems.

Here is an Interest that supports Heifer International’s urban agricultural projects:

Rector & Neill Families Urban Agri Interest

Heifer Honduras

A new project will strengthen rural micro-enterprise in Honduras. Heifer’s intervention in favor of small farmers sparked the beginning of rural microenterprises that market surplus production and added value products. Led by small farmers, these rural enterprises lack the skills and resources to become successful, innovative businesses that support families and communities.

This project will strengthen nine rural microenterprises born from Heifer projects. These cooperatives will improve the nutrition and income of 883 families by generating jobs and marketing added-value products from honey, dairy, organic manure, seeds, pork, fish and weaving.

The following Interests provide long-term support for Heifer International projects that provide small farmers the training and tools to lift themselves out of poverty:

Honduras Country Interest
Honduras: Sarita Irias Interest
Honduras: Tim & Gloria Wheeler Interest
Honduras: Carrie & Robert G. Whitfield Memorial Interest
Honduras: Sievert & Peterson Interest

Heifer Ecuador

Unsustainable farming practices in the provinces of Los Rios and Guayas in the southern coast of Ecuador have severely affected local farmers’ ability to make a living off agriculture. Monocropping, indiscriminate water use and intense chemicals deteriorate the local environment at a rapid pace. Rural and urban families struggle to afford local healthy and nutritious food.

A new project working with small farms and promoting local markets will involve 290 families who will learn about farm diversification and water management to improve nutrition; generate surplus produce to increase household income; and build organizational capacity through leadership training for 120 community leaders, who will then share their knowledge with 1,200 people.

These Interests provide sustainable support for new projects that will improve the nutrition and earning ability of small farmers in Ecuador:

Ecuador: Eduardo & Nancy Sotomayor Interest
South America Country Interest

Hope Equity has been selected as an official Adobe Site of the Day for Monday, October 13. Adobe products are the industry standard for publishing and Web design software, so this recognition carries weight in wide array of professional fields. Hope Equity will be featured on the Showcase section of the Adobe Web site (http://www.adobe.com/showcase/).
This is a credit to the hard work of our designers and the creative team behind the Hope Equity. Yet it is an even better opportunity to be exposed to a diverse, educated group of people who are unaware of Hope Equity and our mission of ending hunger and poverty. Designers, publishers and industry insiders are just some of the users that frequent the Adobe site. The Adobe Site of the Day winner badge will now be featured prominently the Hope Equity site as well.
Adobe recognizes Web sites based on its use of “strong visual designs, superior functionalities, and innovative uses of Adobe products. We want to give credit to the creative and engineering talent behind the scenes.”
And, most importantly, let us know what you think! We strive to provide donors with a unique, sustainable way of giving back. Think of Hope Equity as your tool. We can only make it better with your input.

The Windy (and humid) City played host to the latest GOOD Magazine event last Friday, August 22, at the eclectic Salvage One event center/art constellation/architectural salvage yard. Hope Equity set up amongst roman pillars and renovated church furnishings for an evening filled with lively discussions and introductions to a new way of giving. The more than 750 Chicagoans that attended showed a genuine interest in Hope Equity’s mission of providing sustainable giving to countries, non-profits and initiatives dedicated to ending hunger and poverty and caring for the Earth. We spoke to people from all walks of life, including lawyers, reporters, students, writers, artists and many others who were there to learn more and also have a good time. The bottom floor of Salvage One included Hope Equity, Virgin Mobile’s Re-Generation project, Peak Organic and many local non-profit and community outreach initiatives. Upstairs their was screen printing set up for on-the-spot t-shirt creation, a mini-theater set up showing GOOD short films about a host of important issues, as well as a dance floor that buzzed to the likes of Flostradamus, Hollywood Holt and Willy Joy. Choose GOOD Chicago once again showed that education and entertainment can go hand in hand.

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Catie Curtis understands how the gift of an instrument can forever change a young person’s life. When Catie was 15-years-old, growing up in a small town in southern Maine, she was given a guitar with the only catch being that she had to learn how to play it.

Now, in the midst of a musical career that has seen her travel all across the U.S. and Europe, release nine studio albums to critical acclaim – including a 2006 International Songwriting Competition Grand Prize – Catie has a desire to give the same gift she once received. Catie has created one of Hope Equity’s newest Interests, the Catie Curtis Aspire To Inspire Endowment, to provide continuous, ongoing funding for the ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) Foundation so that guitars can be given to budding young musicians that can’t afford to buy their own.

“My passion is to put guitars in the hands of aspiring young musicians. They can use it as a vehicle to create a life for themselves, if they so choose,” Catie said.

A Boston-based singer-songwriter, Catie plays a hopeful, yet honest brand of grassroots folk music that has been influenced by the likes of Cheryl Wheeler, Greg Brown and John Gorka. But it was a woman passing through her sleepy hometown as stage manager of a traveling theater troupe that made her an offer that would forever change her life.

“I remember she held it up and said ‘you can have it, if you learn to play,’” Catie said. “It was an artist speaking to an artist, really deliberate and really intense. I couldn’t accept it unless I committed myself to learning to play.”

Catie says she wonders what her life would be like now if not for that fateful day – if she would have ever became a singer-songwriter. For Catie, music is something that helped her make sense of the world and find meaningfulness in life, which is what she hopes to provide to others.

“Many successful people have a story like that, where somebody gave them a leg up,” she said.

To that end, the ASCAP Foundation provides funding for the teachers that take part in summer camps for inner-city youth where children are given the opportunity to discover their talents. These teachers will identify those with a desire or inclination to play the guitar. “We want to put guitars in aspiring musicians’ hands, as an unexpected gift, to convey the confidence that comes from someone believing in them. As a non-profit organization, the ASCAP Foundation buys the guitars tax-free and awards them to specific students who really want to learn.” she said.

It doesn’t end there for Catie, as she will be able to send a message of support to the young musicians chosen to receive a guitar. Just as students are specifically chosen to receive guitars, the Catie Curtis Aspire to Inspire Endowment is specifically designated to support the ASCAP’s efforts to put instruments in the hands of burgeoning musicians.

“I have had success as a touring singer-songwriter, but I don’t have millions to donate. I have a voice in the community, and so I can raise interest in supporting good causes. People don’t have to be Bill Gates in order to feel like they have something to give.” Ultimately, Catie views Hope Equity as a way to provide “an ongoing funding source for a mission I really believe in.” All charitable gifts to the Endowment will be invested, with a percentage of the interest generated being made available each year to the ASCAP for the purchase of guitars.

“It’s a unique model of charitable giving, that as people put money in it, they can watch it grow year after year,” Catie said. “I love the fact that the growth of the endowment will ensure that students are given guitars each year through this program, forever.”

For more on Catie Curtis, please visit www.catiecurtis.com.