Posts Tagged ‘Charitable Organization’

Restore an African’s Eyesight with Magellan’s and SEE International

Posted on December 21st, 2009 by Andrea M. Rotondo

I’ve been doing a lot of online hol­i­day shop­ping and recently picked up some nice travel gifts at Magellan’s Travel Sup­plies. When my items arrived, the box also con­tained a flyer about Magellan’s part­ner­ship with a non­profit orga­ni­za­tion called SEE Inter­na­tional.

Accord­ing to the orga­ni­za­tion, 75 per­cent of the world’s 37 mil­lion cases of blind­ness are actu­ally treat­able, mak­ing the loss of sight a human­i­tar­ian emergency.

SEE Inter­na­tional puts together teams of vol­un­teer oph­thal­mol­o­gists to go where their help is needed, includ­ing places like Thai­land, Mex­ico, Bangladesh, Viet­nam, and Zimbabwe.

Since 1974 SEE’s eye sur­geons have per­formed more than 360,000 sight-storing procedures.

Magellan’s has been a cor­po­rate part­ner of SEE Inter­na­tional for over 20 years, pro­vid­ing travel kits for sur­geons as well as adver­tis­ing out­reach to its customers.

Expe­di­tions to the fol­low­ing coun­tries are sched­uled for 2010: Swazi­land, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Ghana, The Gam­bia, Nige­ria, Namibia, and Kenya.

Dona­tions are tax deductible and may be made online via a secure server. Visit See International’s web­site or call 1-(805)963‑3303 and men­tion that you heard about the orga­ni­za­tion from Magellan’s Travel Supplies.

Sur­gi­cal Eye Expe­di­tions (SEE) Inter­na­tional is a 501©(3) non­profit orga­ni­za­tion. Tax ID #31–1682275.

—Andrea M. Rotondo for LuxurySafariExperts.com

Photo of Maa­sai woman and child cour­tesy of iStockPhoto.com

Micro Donations to The Footprints Network Tackles World Poverty

Posted on December 18th, 2009 by Andrea M. Rotondo

Project in Zambia with Plan Australia

Project in Zam­bia with Plan Australia

Do you remem­ber the 1999 movie Office Space with Jen­nifer Anis­ton and Ron Liv­ingston? It’s a favorite of mine and if you haven’t seen it, I’ll need to explain one of the plot lines in order to set up this blog post.

Liv­ingston plays Peter Gib­bons, who works in an admin­is­tra­tive role at a com­puter com­pany called Initech. When his friends are laid off, they con­spire to devise a way to skim frac­tions of pen­nies off all finan­cial trans­ac­tions being han­dled by Initech. Con­sider it micro-embezzling.
Think about it… frac­tions of a dol­lar seem like chump change on its own, but com­bine all those frac­tions together and we’re talk­ing big money.
That’s sort of the con­cept that The Foot­prints Net­work, based in Aus­tralia, has embraced to fight poverty across the globe. They believe that micro donations—between $1 and $5—made by con­sumers dur­ing online trans­ac­tions can help fund com­mu­nity devel­op­ment projects.
The net­work funds pro­grams that upgrade farm­ing, edu­ca­tion, access to clean water, and sight restoration—all in an effort to elim­i­nate poverty.
Founded in 2004 by WorldNomads.com after the Asian tsunami, 302,278 indi­vid­u­als have raised more than $785,383 for 53 projects around the world.
“Alle­vi­at­ing the extreme cycle of poverty and the ills that accom­pany it is everyone’s moral respon­si­bil­ity,” said Chris Novel, gen­eral man­ager of WorldNomads.com. “Yet the extent of world poverty can seem so over­whelm­ing that many of us are left feel­ing help­less and that the prob­lems are just too big for any one per­son to make a difference.”
In just five years, WorldNomads.com has devel­oped an inde­pen­dent net­work of e-commerce busi­nesses that share the same ethics and val­ues and, through tech­nol­ogy, seek to change the world by ask­ing cus­tomers spend­ing money online to make a small dona­tion to char­ity at the same time.
WorldNomads.com sup­ports all admin­is­tra­tive costs of the pro­gram so 100 per­cent of dona­tions go directly to the projects.
While the net­work is small, it is grow­ing. “We’re look­ing for more online e-commerce busi­ness part­ners to inte­grate the Foot­prints mech­a­nism into their shop­ping carts and, trans­ac­tion by trans­ac­tion, help make a dif­fer­ence,” said Noble.
This is def­i­nitely a pro­gram worth watch­ing. For more infor­ma­tion, visit The Foot­prints Network.
—Andrea M. Rotondo for LuxurySafariExperts.com

Do you remem­ber the 1999 movie Office Space with Jen­nifer Anis­ton and Ron Liv­ingston? It’s a favorite of mine and if you haven’t seen it, I’ll need to explain one of the plot lines in order to set up this blog post.

Liv­ingston plays Peter Gib­bons, who works in an admin­is­tra­tive role at a com­puter com­pany called Initech. When his friends are laid off, they con­spire to devise a way to skim frac­tions of pen­nies off all finan­cial trans­ac­tions being han­dled by Initech. Con­sider it micro-embezzling.

Think about it… frac­tions of a dol­lar seem like chump change on its own, but com­bine all those frac­tions together and we’re talk­ing big money.

That’s sort of the con­cept that The Foot­prints Net­work, based in Aus­tralia, has embraced to fight poverty across the globe. They believe that micro donations—between $1 and $5—made by con­sumers dur­ing online trans­ac­tions can help fund com­mu­nity devel­op­ment projects.

The net­work funds pro­grams that upgrade farm­ing, edu­ca­tion, access to clean water, and sight restoration—all in an effort to elim­i­nate poverty. One of the cur­rent projects on the docket focuses on improv­ing farm­ing in Zam­bia. This will, in turn, increase access to food for the poor­est fam­i­lies in the region. Plan Aus­tralia is over­see­ing the train­ing program.

Founded in 2004 by WorldNomads.com after the Asian tsunami, 302,278 indi­vid­u­als have raised more than $785,383 for 53 projects around the world.

Alle­vi­at­ing the extreme cycle of poverty and the ills that accom­pany it is everyone’s moral respon­si­bil­ity,” said Chris Novel, gen­eral man­ager of WorldNomads.com. “Yet the extent of world poverty can seem so over­whelm­ing that many of us are left feel­ing help­less and that the prob­lems are just too big for any one per­son to make a difference.”

In just five years, WorldNomads.com has devel­oped an inde­pen­dent net­work of e-commerce busi­nesses that share the same ethics and val­ues and, through tech­nol­ogy, seek to change the world by ask­ing cus­tomers spend­ing money online to make a small dona­tion to char­ity at the same time.

WorldNomads.com sup­ports all admin­is­tra­tive costs of the pro­gram so 100 per­cent of dona­tions go directly to the projects.

While the net­work is small, it is grow­ing. “We’re look­ing for more online e-commerce busi­ness part­ners to inte­grate the Foot­prints mech­a­nism into their shop­ping carts and, trans­ac­tion by trans­ac­tion, help make a dif­fer­ence,” said Noble.

This is def­i­nitely a pro­gram worth watch­ing. For more infor­ma­tion, visit The Foot­prints Network.

—Andrea M. Rotondo for LuxurySafariExperts.com

Community Service Projects in South Africa

Posted on December 6th, 2009 by Andrea M. Rotondo

What Else Will You Do Dur­ing the World Cup?

Are you head­ing to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa? You’re going to enjoy a few games and maybe go on safari, but have you thought about doing some ser­vice work while you’re there?

Ele­vate Des­ti­na­tions has put together a few cus­tomized com­mu­nity tours in South Africa that will show trav­el­ers some of the chal­lenges fac­ing com­mu­ni­ties in Johan­nes­burg, Dur­ban, and Cape Town. Spe­cial tours can be orga­nized for a min­i­mum of one to two days.

Sug­gested Tours in South Africa

  • Johan­nes­burg—Visit com­mu­nity projects in Soweto with for­mer soc­cer play­ers such as Andre Arendse and Linda Buthelezi.
  • Cape Town—Tour three dif­fer­ent city com­mu­nity empow­er­ment projects on a one-day tour.
  • Dur­ban—Head to the Indigo Skate Park in the Val­ley of a Thou­sand Hills, a rural area in Dur­ban where skate board­ing has brought hope to this community.

Down­load Ele­vate Destination’s World Cup Com­mu­nity Tour­ing pdf.

For more infor­ma­tion, visit Ele­vated Des­ti­na­tions or call (617) 661‑0203.

—Andrea M. Rotondo for LuxurySafariExperts.com

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