I have writer’s block.

There, I’ve said it. Recently, I’ve even found myself referring to dictionaries of quotations for inspiration like some seventh grader with an essay assignment. It’s funny, because it’s not at all as if I have nothing to write. The truth is, there’s simply so much going on that my brain, even on all cylinders, is unable to process it all.

Funny, today I looked back at some of what I’d written in anticipation of my original trip to Africa, long before I’d ever met Mama Lucy and before Epic Change was born. And I noticed something profoundly different from then to now. That first trip I had no agenda, no project plan, no objectives, just a blank slate on which to scriven the experience. Back then, the words were flowing; like Salt-n-Pepa or Missy Elliot spinnin’ a rhyme, I could weave a story. Everything was seen through fresh, new, yearning eyes wide open. I recorded every taste, smell and sound religiously to savor and share, not out of necessity, but out of wonder.

Recently, my eyes have been too focused on mundane to-do lists to look up. I’ve been fixated on computer screens, project plans and html code. The how rather than the why.

But I believe there’s about to be a moment when all this noise comes to an abrupt and total silence, when I remember the hope, wonder and wide-open eyes and heart of my original footsteps on the continent.

I will see the new school for the time.

And I can’t even begin to imagine how that will feel. But I know I will feel it wholly. For at least that split second (and hopefully longer) my brain will have no gnawing thoughts of “gotta get it done” or “what’s next?”. I’ll simply be basking in the glow of very tangible, very real fruits of our labor over the past several months. I only hope that my words return to me by then, because I must somehow capture the marrow of that moment. Save it in a bell jar, a relish for later when the season passes.

I remember stepping off the plane as I arrived in Kiliminjaro for my most recent visit near the end of last year. I remember the smell of warmth in the place, its drought-browness. I remember the look in Mama Lucy’s eyes, her broad, “welcome home” smile that seemed to say, “I wasn’t sure you were coming back…but I’m so glad you did.” So many people visit, make promises, leave with the best of intentions and never return.

I, on the other hand, am going back. After all, I have things to do, a gannt chart a mile long.

But here’s the thing: I need to forget about them. Sure, there’s a lot to get done. But for now the nagging voices of tasks, deliverables and deadlines need to fade. They will get done, but so much heartfully, so much more beautifully if I can forget about them for a minute and just reconnect with our purpose:

We share the epic stories of hopeful people to help them create change in their communities.

We share stories of hope. Instead of listening to the constant nails-on-the-chalkboard sound of my inner project manager, I need to listen and connect to the inspiring voices of the children, their parents and their teachers, and the incredible potential of this community - potential you’re helping to realize by investing in Epic Change.

So, as I wrote in my journal the night before I left for my first trip to Africa:

The rest of the trip is eyes (ears, heart and mind) wide open.
I wonder what we’ll see . . .

Having now been before, this much I know: it will be beautiful.

I leave today for Germany, and after a few days there, arrive in Tanzania on Friday July 4th. Stay tuned to see where the journey leads…and thanks for coming with me.

(Today’s inner soundtrack: Little Wonders by Rob Thomas)

Posted: June 30th, 2008 under The Foundry.
Comments: 3

Meet Pius, a kindergartner at the school in Tanzania, and his courageous mother, Anna:

I wish I had the vocabulary to describe how I felt as Pius played while Mama Anna stood singing in her living room, her voice raised to beckon love, acceptance and a cure. Words escape me, so instead I’ll leave you with her song, in its entirety: listen here.

Posted: June 22nd, 2008 under The Foundry, Story Spot.
Comments: 1

If I learned anything from junior high (other than how to survive the ridicule that accompanies pubescence), it’s that nothing says love like a mixtape (or Casey Kasem). So, in addition to the eighteen videos that have now been submitted by people from three continents, I’d like to bring the children an additional gift - a CD of songs dedicated to them by our friends, donors and supporters that share a little bit about who you are and your personal messages for the kids.

To participate, all you need to do is post a comment below with your name, the name of the song you’d like to dedicate and why you’ve chosen that particular tune. If you’d prefer, make your own muxtape, and leave your dedication and a link below.

If you need some musical inspiration, here’s a few songs that I’ve posted to Twitter and the blog throughout the last few months that somehow serve to commemorate the journey:

• The Sweetest Gift by Sade (posted on 5/29/08)
• Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield (posted 5/28/08)
• Suddenly I See by KT Tunstall (posted 5/23/08)
• Say by John Mayer (posted 5/7/09)
• Look Up by Lauren Hayworth (posted 4/30/08)
• New Soul by Yael Naim (posted on 4/27/08)
• Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole (posted 4/9/08)
• Let the River Flow by Up with People (posted 4/9/08)
• Even a Miracle Needs a Hand (posted 4/7/08)
  

In retrospect, I may need to move farther afield from the genre of cheese. Here too are a few songs that the children have shared with us:

• Be Happy Before You Die
• It’s a Small World
• You Are My Sunshine

PS: If you’d still like to submit your video for our Stories Matter project, we’ve extended the deadline through Monday, 6/16/08. For more info, check here.

Posted: June 13th, 2008 under The Foundry.
Comments: 10

In my last post, I mentioned our commitment to building the capacity for you to interact directly with those impacted by your donations and support. Just as we’re working to enable direct conversation between our supporters and the community with which we’re partnered in Tanzania, our organization is also committed to providing direct forms of support from our donors to our loan recipients.

In one of Mama Lucy’s recent comments on the blog, she wrote, in response to a question in the blog which asked, “What are the top 3 reasons that you personally support and/or are interested in Epic Change?”

“Their support goes directly to the targeted group/community. This minimizes the chances of misuse of funds; compared to the funds given to the Central Government to be distributed to a certain Ministry then to the targeted group.”

While I am hopeful that corruption is waning in Tanzania and across Africa, recent reports still suggest that graft is a very real problem in the country. As Berkeley professor Edward Miguel writes in his recent article in the Boston Review, “Healthy skepticism about foreign aid’s benefits is particularly appropriate in countries where corruption remains widespread and much of whatever aid does arrive will be squandered.” A few years ago, Der Spiegel published an interview of Kenyan economics expert, James Shikwati, who emphasizes the disastrous impacts that Western aid can have when provided to corrupt governments, saying: “Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted.”

A video I recently ran across by Andrew Mwenda, a provocative Ugandan journalist, underscores their points with his analysis of government spending in his country:

So, unlike many forms of aid which are provided to governments and government-sponsored organizations, and still many other efforts that are primarily led by Westerners without a relevant cultural context, Epic Change is providing loans directly to a grassroots local leader who is working to transform her own community through education. Her results, too, are immediately and completely transparent. Not only does she provide regular photos and blog updates relaying her incredible success, but she even recently sent to us an incredibly thorough catalog of all her receipts.

In addition, as Mwenda’s talk also recommends, Epic Change is not engaged in pureplay charity (in fact, we don’t really ever use that particular word to describe our efforts). Instead we’re investing - providing a loan - to a local woman who is an entrepreneur in every sense of the word. Her expected profit (as ours) may not come in the form of cash, but in the form of something far more valuable: the education of hundreds of children who are in her classrooms now, and the thousands more who will follow in their footsteps through the doors of Shepherds Junior School.

Finally, donations are able to go directly to Mama Lucy because we make every attempt to minimize and/or eliminate overhead expenses. So far, we’ve raised over $43,000 and have spent about $1200 on non-loan expenses, including a mandatory $820 for state & IRS tax-related filing fees and a few hundred dollars in small fees incurred from our donation processing services like Paypal and NetworkforGood. $35,000 has been provided in loans, and nearly $7000 remains available for providing future loans. Not $1 has been paid in salaries (as we have no paid employees) or travel (which has been paid entirely out-of-pocket) and, because our graphic and web design was donated or performed by yours truly, we’ve spent less than $50 on marketing. Your donations go, quite literally, directly to provide loans to the school in Tanzania. As our organization scales, we’ll be able to absorb fewer expenses personally and will certainly begin to incur more overhead costs. Hopefully, we’ll even eventually be able to pay staff, but our perpetual goal will remain to minimize costs that are not directly related to successful project outcomes.

Because your donations to Epic Change directly support the school in Tanzania, I hope you’ll consider donating now toward our next loan, which we hope will provide the opportunity for Shepherds Junior to purchase its first school bus, as Mama Lucy has planned. Your donations will help ensure the safety of small children, ages 2-13, who may live miles from the school, but would walk the distance on dangerous roads to obtain the high-quality education offered there.

We’d also love your opinions: How do you feel about Epic Change’s direct-support model of providing loans to entrepreneurial local leaders who are creating social change in their communities, especially in the context of the insights provided by Miguel, Mwenda and Shikwati? How do you feel about their thinking?

Hat tip to my twitterpal @whiteafrican for the links to the Boston Review and Der Spiegel articles.

Posted: June 6th, 2008 under The Foundry.
Comments: 4

I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but recently a few folks in Tanzania have begun to leave comments here. I read a comment from a parent at the school the other day; he wrote:

There is is a common Swahili sayings - “Uchungu wa mwana aujuaye mzazi” which means the pain of the child is known by the parent. Mama Lucy is the one who bears this “pregnant” for a more than 9 month. She knows the pain that is why she is so careful to care of this little child who has only 4yrs old! If the vision comes from the owner the result will be 9 times than it could come from the donor/supporter. Many oversees have been providing fish but not teaching how to fish. Do you think there is a way for the project to be sustainable in a long run? It is good for the project owners to feel the the pain of bearing children and they would have the desire to see their children growing and bear fruits. That is what Mama Lucy is doing! Keep it up mama Lucy!

When I read it, I was actually moved to tears, not only because of its content, which presents a profoundly insightful perspective on aid, but simply because it exists.

It’s no small ordeal to use the web in Arusha. The school itself has neither electricity nor internet access. Electricity across town is spotty at best, and web access at anything better than dial-up speeds is nearly impossible to find. It’s also somewhat expensive, especially when compared with the cell phone text messaging that is their primary form of electronic communication. And yet, they’re starting to come here to participate in this evolving conversation. Real people in (nearly) real time.

Admittedly, many online forums provide an opportunity for supporters to engage in dialogue about a particular cause. Others exist that provide static progress updates, some directly from beneficiaries of charitable efforts and many more a layer removed, provided by intermediaries. I’ve found few, though, in which both the supporters of a cause and members of the community targeted by their efforts participate in interactive conversation. I’m just a little excited by the prospect - okay, maybe really excited. I believe there’s so much to learn from one another if we’re able to engage in meaningful, interactive dialogue and truly listen to one another’s ideas.

This is part of the reason for our ongoing Stories Matter video project. Already, we’ve received over 15 videos from London, Pennsylvania, Texas, Silicon Valley, Oregon - and even Elmo! - that include messages for the children, parents and teachers in Tanzania. If you haven’t already seen them, take a look at what’s been submitted, with questions ranging from “what superpower would you like to have?” to “what’s your favorite food?” to “what do you want to be when you grow up?” and “what makes you happy?” These will provide an excellent spark to fuel online conversations, and provide topics to explore that are meaningful to us all. We’ve decided to do less editing than originally planned, so if you’d still like to participate, check out the previous blog post for details; we’ll now be accepting videos through June 15th.

A huge thanks to Nick, Zoe, Ashlee, Sanjay, Elijah, Isa, Laura and my twitterbuds Christian (@Documentally), Will (@wbboyd - w/ guest appearance by @Janetta), Moses (@mskpetigo), Wayne (@wayne_rowe), Fi (@firestar9s) Aronado (@Aronado), Maria (@MaThurrell), Scott (@greenskeptic) and Deidre (@Deidre), for taking the time to include their diverse, interesting and heartfelt videos! Thanks to Laura (@Pistachio) and Jason (@JasonJarrett) too for all their amazing help spreading the word!

We’ll be spending significant time over the coming weeks and months developing new technologies to support this burgeoning dialogue. I hope you’ll start to use these tools as an opportunity to engage in direct conversation with Mama Lucy, Gidori and future participants from Arusha who will undoubtedly soon join this community. What types of online interactions would be meaningful for you?

Feel free to ask a question as a comment here to get the dialogue started or read their comments to the posts here or here and respond to their questions and insights.

Posted: June 4th, 2008 under The Foundry.
Comments: none