How YOU can make a difference from anywhere!

This past month has been a whirlwind of activity in the GVN Foundation office with 2 very serious natural disasters impacting many people in the GVN community. On Tuesday, January 11th, an earthquake decimated the city of Port Au Prince and the surrounding area. Prior to the earthquake, we did not have a partner in Haiti. However, with the overwhelming response of caring and concerned individuals from around the world and the massive amount of work that will need to be done to give Haitians an opportunity to overcome such a tragic event, Colin Salisbury and company quickly decided to take action. As of today, over $21,000 of donations have poured in through our webpage on Give A Little and our GVN Foundation-Haiti page. Over 6,500 have offerred to volunteer and are ready and waiting for when commercial flights resume and we can safely and effectively set-up volunteers on the ground where they can be of the most help. An advance team has already been into Haiti to establish partnerships with medical teams, orphanages, and more to find out what is most needed and how we can help in the future with volunteer placements. Whew!

(Photo: Route to Port Au Prince as seen by the GVN Relief and Assessment team last week.)

Aside from the earthquake in Haiti, we learned of the serious flooding throughout the Sacred Valley in Peru. Our partner organization, Peruvian Hearts contacted us to assure everyone that the children and sisters in the orphanage are all safe. Unfortunately, the area has been severely drained of resources with an immediate need for blankets and food. Full crops have been ruined and gardens destroyed by the flooding. It will be a very difficult year to provide for the children and we have set up a fundraising page to do everything we can to help.

Sometimes when I hear of tragic events, it's difficult to see how anything I do can make any real difference. Medical professionals and millionaires aside, it is easy to put on a defeatist attitude and wonder what impact YOU can make. That's where I look for encouragement and inspiration from other people! There's no reason to reinvent the wheel and I will be the first to admit I'm not the most creative person on the planet! So...I cheat. I take the brilliant ideas, words of encouragement, or positive attitudes of others and use them! Not in a way that takes credit from those who deserve it but in a way that I am motivated to keep trying to do my part.

(Photo: Flooding destroyed homes and crops for thousands near the Sacred Valley, Peru)

Recently I found another cool idea from an organization called Oxfam, another organization working hard to help victims in Haiti. They have created a page entitled, "The Big Promise" with the goal to challenge the world leaders who made a promise to tackle world hunger. 10 years after their promises to aggressively pursue the end of hunger, their efforts have been disappointingly slack. They want to show these world leaders how when people make a promise, they should keep it! Why not go on and make your own? One of the most helpful tips I ever received was to write down things I needed to do. For some reason, I feel like I must be held accountable when it is out of my head on onto a sheet of paper. The "nudges" I kept receiving from other people were hard to ignore as well! What was my promise? I promised to update my blog frequently while in Uganda (which I did!) and it felt oddly satisfying to go back on and click the "promise kept" button! I will be writing another promise soon that I intend to keep! Maybe I will receive a few "nudges" from someone who reads this blog!

The coolest part about the promises is trolling through the website and looking at other people's committments. You can "nudge" them to remind them of their promise and when they finish, you can congratulate them! I encourage you to use whatever tools you have available to you to start making small but important commitments that can lead to big changes and differences in the world around you. If you have another great idea or suggestion, leave a comment and let me know!

Caitie Goddard
GVN Foundation
Eat So They Can Team