One of the many satisfying parts of working in international philanthropy is coming across young, innovative organizations that are doing new kinds of work for impoverished and rural communities.
On March 12, Give2Asia was able to feature two such organizations during a spring wine reception for our donors, friends and trustees in San Francisco. The two groups, Wokai and Photovoices International, working respectively in microfinance and the environment, beneift from energetic, well-spoken leaders and interesting, well-executed programs.
WOKAI
Wokai's co-founder and CEO Casey Wilson explained how her organization's programs nurture microfinance in rural China by connecting donors to small entrepreneurs to receive small loans to start their own businesses. Through online community-building, it connects individual lenders in the US to borrowers in China, who are taking their first steps toward starting or expanding a busienss. Wokai, meaning "I start," allows impoverished people in China to start their own small businesses.
This organization benefits people like Zhang Rong who borrowed a loan of $900 to open up a hot pot
stand to support her son's high school education and increase her household income. Rong is receiving more than just money, she will gain confidence, economical independence, and the ability to support her family.
PHOTOVOICES
Ann McBride-Norton of Photovoices International offered an overview of how Photovoices was conceived. She then embarked on a narrative presentation of Photovoices' project sites with an accompanying slideshow. Sites include Lamalera Village in Eastern Indonesia, Yunnan Province of China and Boti Village of Timor.
Photovoices is a project that allows indigenous peoples to communicate their culture and way of life in a universal language, through pictures. The program trains the local people to use cameras, with a few workshops on technique and composition. Then for a year, the people document their way of life. Translators come in once a month, to capture the "words" to accompany these pictorial stories. The goal of this program is to get the local voice without losing meanings and important messages often lost in verbal translation.
To find out more about these organizations and how you can help check out their sites:
www.wokai.org
www.photovoicesinternational.org
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