Experiments in Blogging

Welcome to my Tumblr. I’m new at this, so bear with me. But here goes. If you don’t know already, I’m raising money for a wonderful organization called One Home Many Hopes. It all began with Anthony Mulongo, a fantastic guy I’ve met a few times. He wanted to do more for his native country, so he started a home for Kenyan girls, taking them off the streets from their lives of forced prostitution and helping them to get an education. Now he wants to do more - so much more. Instead of just a home, he also wants to build a school and fundamentally change the idea of education in Kenya. Education in Kenya leaves much to be desired - basically, it’s just rote memorization. Anthony wants to get real teachers into the school to give these girls real education so that they can go on to lead better lives. Here’s what the OHMH website has to say about why education is important for the young girls of Kenya: Education is the solution because: Children in school marry later, have children later, and have fewer of them. And are able to provide for them. They will break the cycle. Educated people will have options beyond prostitution or hunger. They will break the cycle. Educated people start to ask intelligent questions e.g. “Why is our health system not working?”  “Why is our government living so well while our people are starving?” And find answers. They will break the cycle. So now we just have to BUILD that school. Our goal is a lofty one - we need to raise $291,000 to properly execute Anthony’s vision. When I tell them this, some people say, “$291,000 in Kenya is a LOT of money.” True - but Anthony’s ideas are grand, and sometimes it takes a grand idea to truly change things. This is about fundamentally changing the way things work in Kenya. And I believe in it. I’ve never done any sort of fundraising before. I’ve always meant to do something “more”, if that’s the right term for it, but for some reason never had the wherewithal to actually do it. Call it fear, call it laziness, call it selfishness…I’m not sure why I never did. But I finally found something I’m really passionate about, so I’m fighting really hard for it. I’ve pledged to raise $8,500 in support of this cause. When I set that goal, it seemed very achievable. Now I’m not so sure! I’ve been doing some serious work on it, bugging and probably alienating most of the friends I have, and I’m only at $1,100! So I’m trying everything. Which is why I’m writing what you’re reading right now. And as it happens, I’m also working on an amazing PBS documentary series right now based on the incredible book, Half the Sky. So all of these things seems to be coming together. So clearly, this means a lot to me, and any help you might be able to give would be greatly appreciated. If you’d like to donate - or better yet become a part of my fundraising team and help me to fundraise by bugging your friends as well! - go here: http://bit.ly/nBzem1 Thank you for your time. And hopefully this whole tumblr thing will become a bigger thing for me - right now, you can at least expect more posts on this subject. :)

Welcome to my Tumblr. I’m new at this, so bear with me. But here goes.

If you don’t know already, I’m raising money for a wonderful organization called One Home Many Hopes. It all began with Anthony Mulongo, a fantastic guy I’ve met a few times. He wanted to do more for his native country, so he started a home for Kenyan girls, taking them off the streets from their lives of forced prostitution and helping them to get an education.

Now he wants to do more - so much more. Instead of just a home, he also wants to build a school and fundamentally change the idea of education in Kenya. Education in Kenya leaves much to be desired - basically, it’s just rote memorization. Anthony wants to get real teachers into the school to give these girls real education so that they can go on to lead better lives. Here’s what the OHMH website has to say about why education is important for the young girls of Kenya:

Education is the solution because:

  1. Children in school marry later, have children later, and have fewer of them. And are able to provide for them. They will break the cycle.
  2. Educated people will have options beyond prostitution or hunger. They will break the cycle.
  3. Educated people start to ask intelligent questions e.g. “Why is our health system not working?”  “Why is our government living so well while our people are starving?” And find answers. They will break the cycle.

So now we just have to BUILD that school. Our goal is a lofty one - we need to raise $291,000 to properly execute Anthony’s vision. When I tell them this, some people say, “$291,000 in Kenya is a LOT of money.” True - but Anthony’s ideas are grand, and sometimes it takes a grand idea to truly change things. This is about fundamentally changing the way things work in Kenya. And I believe in it.

I’ve never done any sort of fundraising before. I’ve always meant to do something “more”, if that’s the right term for it, but for some reason never had the wherewithal to actually do it. Call it fear, call it laziness, call it selfishness…I’m not sure why I never did.

But I finally found something I’m really passionate about, so I’m fighting really hard for it. I’ve pledged to raise $8,500 in support of this cause. When I set that goal, it seemed very achievable. Now I’m not so sure! I’ve been doing some serious work on it, bugging and probably alienating most of the friends I have, and I’m only at $1,100! So I’m trying everything. Which is why I’m writing what you’re reading right now.

And as it happens, I’m also working on an amazing PBS documentary series right now based on the incredible book, Half the Sky. So all of these things seems to be coming together.

So clearly, this means a lot to me, and any help you might be able to give would be greatly appreciated. If you’d like to donate - or better yet become a part of my fundraising team and help me to fundraise by bugging your friends as well! - go here:

http://bit.ly/nBzem1

Thank you for your time. And hopefully this whole tumblr thing will become a bigger thing for me - right now, you can at least expect more posts on this subject. :)

Educating Kenya

Welcome to my Tumblr. I’m new at this, so bear with me. But here goes.

If you don’t know already, I’m raising money for a wonderful organization called One Home Many Hopes. It all began with Anthony Mulongo, a fantastic guy I’ve met a few times. He wanted to do more for his native country, so he started a home for Kenyan girls, taking them off the streets from their lives of forced prostitution and helping them to get an education.

Now he wants to do more - so much more. Instead of just a home, he also wants to build a school and fundamentally change the idea of education in Kenya. Education in Kenya leaves much to be desired - basically, it’s just rote memorization. Anthony wants to get real teachers into the school to give these girls real education so that they can go on to lead better lives. Here’s what the OHMH website has to say about why education is important for the young girls of Kenya:

Education is the solution because:

  1. Children in school marry later, have children later, and have fewer of them. And are able to provide for them. They will break the cycle.
  2. Educated people will have options beyond prostitution or hunger. They will break the cycle.
  3. Educated people start to ask intelligent questions e.g. “Why is our health system not working?”  “Why is our government living so well while our people are starving?” And find answers. They will break the cycle.

So now we just have to BUILD that school. Our goal is a lofty one - we need to raise $291,000 to properly execute Anthony’s vision. When I tell them this, some people say, “$291,000 in Kenya is a LOT of money.” True - but Anthony’s ideas are grand, and sometimes it takes a grand idea to truly change things. This is about fundamentally changing the way things work in Kenya. And I believe in it.

I’ve never done any sort of fundraising before. I’ve always meant to do something “more”, if that’s the right term for it, but for some reason never had the wherewithal to actually do it. Call it fear, call it laziness, call it selfishness…I’m not sure why I never did.

But I finally found something I’m really passionate about, so I’m fighting really hard for it. I’ve pledged to raise $8,500 in support of this cause. When I set that goal, it seemed very achievable. Now I’m not so sure! I’ve been doing some serious work on it, bugging and probably alienating most of the friends I have, and I’m only at $1,100! So I’m trying everything. Which is why I’m writing what you’re reading right now.

So clearly, this means a lot to me, and any help you might be able to give would be greatly appreciated. If you’d like to donate - or better yet become a part of my fundraising team and help me to fundraise by bugging your friends as well! - go here:

http://bit.ly/nBzem1

Thank you for your time. And hopefully this whole tumblr thing will become a bigger thing for me - right now, you can at least expect more posts on this subject. :)