Fundraising brainstorm

[sundave22]

Hi from sundave22, I may have an interesting idea, I work at many events in Northern California. I know many artists and producers. I
heard about the www.laptop.org program at "Solfest". I have relatives who are going to Somalia to teach, They want me to help produce an event fundraiser to
send desks to the schools there. They can find desks for about $60. shipping will cost three times more. My Idea is something like have fundraisers to
fill the desks with 10 to 3000 laptops and send them to Somalia.
It's a way out idea. I think many artists would donate for this and it seems like I just need to connect the dots. I am unsure how to proceed.
Who would mentor me through such an adventure? The possible benefit seems worthy and some of the pieces have presented themselves.
Any Suggestions or assistance ?
[email protected]
check out the link above
ALSO search :olpc xo. Watch a demonstration video and check out the product vision. It is an important piece of this idea.

Actually, a lot of these pieces seem to fit.
!) The design of the machine. This is an educational tool
2)The XO laptop began production ,like;Yesterday.
New#3) give one get one program
4)people are investigating this area. In person,live, now.
5) They want to have a benefit to send stuff there
I just want to include a few things in the shipment
The thing:check
The way:check
The research:check

How about this, if 1500 people gave $20 each, we could buy 100
that would make nice little web
Add two full time teachers
and let simmer through summer

I got a response from give many at laptop.org:

Thank you for writing and sharing your interest in OLPC.

I think you have a great idea. Unfortunately OLPC is a very small team and just does not have the capacity to get involved in these efforts. We wish we could because its this type of initiative that is really going to make OLPC happen.

Best of luck,
R_____.

Everyone says "Thats tough, you have to do it a certain way"
O.K. check .I am confident in the people in #4 above
I just deleted the "party" stuff becauce it is not the point

I have some advancement on my Idea, The give1get1 program lasts only 6
more days (Google olpc xo) I have a couple pledges. I plan to do some public flyering to collect more support
My contact has returned this story much information about this project :

Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2007 12:58:01 -0800

>
>Hello Dear Friends and Family,
>
>We are home safely from Africa. We arrived home Sunday night and have spent the last few days catching up on sleep and putting together some reports based on the information that we gathered in Southern Sudan and Nairobi.
>
>As you can imagine, it was a grand adventure. Nairobi is a crowded, hectic city and our time there was all about business and finding textbooks and pricing supplies. Our time in southern Sudan was much different since it is very rural with very few services and goods are scarce, and life moves at a much slower pace as a result. We met many people who will play important roles in our missionary life when we return in February. The Episcopal bishop for whom we will work is a kind, practical man, and we liked him very much. Of course, we traveled the thirty bad road miles from Rumbek to the rural community where the new secondary school is to meet people and see the school. Those thirty miles there and back and our stay there has many stories--funny and good ones.
>
>A highlight was attending Dinka church under a tree--a huge, twisted tree with large branches--and below it on crude benches sit about 500 beautiful, tall Dinka people of all ages. The service is about three hours long and there is a great deal of singing and drumming. Since the whole service is in the Dinka language, I didn't understand the words, but sometimes recognized the tune. There was preaching by several different people--people seemed patient and interested during this long service. Women dressed in white from the Mother's Union collect the offering in large baskets by standing in front in several places. The baskets aren't passed, but instead people come to the baskets with their offering and when they put their money in the basket they do it with their hand down so that what they give is very private and between them and God--not a public boast, I was told.
>
>At this service Jim and I were introduced along with our traveling companions Darryl and Jennifer from Hope for Humanity. We each spoke and what we said was translated. It was at this time that Assistant Bishop Isaac who was translating gave Jim and me Dinka names. J____ is M'bor which means white bull and I am Amare which is white cow with very little brown spots. There was much cheering and good humor from the crowd over the giving of our names. If you did not know that the Dinka revere their cows for the cows are their wealth then you might think that cow names were not a good thing, but since cows play such an important role in their society and economic system, they have names for every possible kind of coloration the long, lanky, skinny beloved cows could possibly have. Our new Dinka names were the best ice breaker possible, and we were greeted by these names during the following week wherever we would go.
>
>Enough with the stories for now. If you are receiving this, then we count you very dear and appreciate your prayers and support for our trip.
>
>Fondly,J&M
>

[Zeno Swijtink]

Hi from sundave22, I may have an interesting idea, I work at many events in Northern California. I know many artists and producers. I
heard about the www.laptop.org program at "Solfest". I have relatives who are going to Somalia to teach, They want me to help produce an event fundraiser to
send desks to the schools there. They can find desks for about $60. shipping will cost three times more. My Idea is something like have fundraisers to
fill the desks with 1000 to 3000 laptops and send them to Somalia.
It's a way out idea. I think many artists would donate for this and it seems like I just need to connect the dots. I am unsure how to proceed.
Who would mentor me through such an adventure? The possible benefit seems worthy and some of the pieces have presented themselves.
Any Suggestions or assistance ?
[email protected]

Great you are taking something like this on!!

Two suggestions: Somalia may be better served by having local shops produce these desks, rather than having them imported.

Also, study the whole issue in depth. Internet connectivity is a bottleneck. A place to start is

https://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archiv.../msg00058.html

[Willie Lumplump]

Hi from sundave22, I may have an interesting idea, I work at many events in Northern California. I know many artists and producers. I
heard about the www.laptop.org program at "Solfest". I have relatives who are going to Somalia to teach, They want me to help produce an event fundraiser to
send desks to the schools there. They can find desks for about $60. shipping will cost three times more. My Idea is something like have fundraisers to
fill the desks with 1000 to 3000 laptops and send them to Somalia.
It's a way out idea. I think many artists would donate for this and it seems like I just need to connect the dots. I am unsure how to proceed.
Who would mentor me through such an adventure? The possible benefit seems worthy and some of the pieces have presented themselves.
Any Suggestions or assistance ?
[email protected]

I see a question of priorities. If the students don't even have desks, what are the chances that the next most-needed item would be computers? Do they have pens and pencils? Do they have paper? Do they have books? Blackboards? Chalk? Erasers? Do they have clothes to wear to school? Enough food in their stomachs to enable them to concentrate on their studies? Do they have a teacher who earns enough to make full-time teaching possible? If you ship anything, what are the chances that the consignment will reach its destination rather than be hijacked by corrupt government officials or even port bandits? I'm in a position to ask these questions because I worked with African villagers for eight years. What the situation is now in Mogadishu, if that's where the desks are going, I don't know, but from what I hear it's not good.

I have to say, I question the cost effectiveness of shipping desks. For what it costs to buy and ship 100 desks, you might be able to hire local carpenters to manufacture 2,000 desks. Then the students would have desks and the local economy would be stimulated by the jobs generated, and the stimulation to the local economy might allow locals to purchase the items that I listed in the first paragraph, making everyone better off. If you want to get involved in this project, I'd suggest that first you contact NGO's in Somalia and learn what the local needs and resources (materials and manpower) are.

The history of foreign aid to Africa is riddled with all manner of mistakes. Unless you want to become a part of this unfortunate history, I'd suggest that you do a whole lot of research first.

["Mad" Miles]

More Eminent Reason from Dr. Lumplump,

I worked for the Sonoma County Chapter of the American Red Cross for three years. 1989-2001. I learned a few things. Some of them useful.

Shipping hard goods (clothing, food, medicine, etc.) across the world to the suffering masses is a waste of money.

Funds spent locally do all that Willie listed. Stimulates the local economy. Provides jobs. Gets the society affected by the disaster (both immediate and ongoing) back on its feet.

What costs x amount here, may cost only x minus or divided by y there. So cost can often be much, much less in a local impoverished area (or nearby in better functioning neighbor economies) compared to expensive post-industrial markets here.

The effort to produce a $100 laptop, which now is projected to exceed $300, is illustrative of this problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLPC


Charities will accept your retail amounts of canned goods and used clothes. Because they don't want to discourage the well-intended. And they don't want to piss off those ardently committed to doing good. PR trumps realism in the non-profit world.

But unless a local need can be met with those small mixed lots of bulk goods, they're going to end up gathering dust in a donated storage space, or get put discretely in the dumpster when no one is looking. I know, I was told to do it, and did.

Shipping costs big bucks. As the price of oil goes up, that price goes up. Money is fluid and can be moved much more quickly and cheaply (that's why it was invented!). The key, as Willie emphasizes, is how to spend it wisely and usefully. A much more difficult question.

Surely every media savvy person reading this knows about the destruction of the local African clothing industries by the cheaper bales of used Western clothing (T-Shirts, etc.) shipped there and brokered by middle-men/women in the local markets? Big magazine article a few years ago in the Sunday New York Times.

Much of the evil in the world is perpetrated by the uninformed seeking to do good in the wrong places, at the wrong times.

Oh and simple neglect and lack of compassion, but that's another story.

"Mad" Miles

P.S. And now you have an inkling as to why I'm so ANGRY!

[sundave22]

Willie! thanks for your say...
let me start to reply by bringing up that the main part of this idea started when I heard that my relatives
ARE in Somalia checking out returning to teach .They are on a mission. Also they are both ex-air force and retired.
I handled a working proto-type of the OX< https://www.laptop.org > at Solfest. This week I read that Libya and Uruguay both
greatly reduced their orders...
The OX works on a net type system where one can pass the web to to the next village if it is in range...
The OX has features that reduce their attraction by the black market (I see the relative impossibility, but an important inclusion)
is based on open source software,and can be powered by alternative power (foot pedal){bla-bla}
Yeah ,why sent them desks when they don't have pencils to eat..
When Jim returns, I hope to present a movement that carries itself to this far reaching goal, or some other beneficial goal
At this stage it is just an idea,but it would be cool to send 'buncha laptops there.
I pray a caravan of supplies accompanies them. This could be the fun idea that gathers.

Mad miles: The OLPC OX is exactly the machine I am thinking about sending there.
Dumping stupid electronics on starving people and doing the humanitarian dance is not the vision
I am thinking more like sending my sweet school-teacher aunt some school supplies.
I think a smart machine that can talk their language and teach their village to write might
be pretty cool...1000 of them and an instructor would be really cool...
Or should I help my uncles church send desks to where they need them,that has a very good chance of succeeding.
Those people are on a Mission

[Willie Lumplump]

At this stage it is just an idea,but it would be cool to send 'buncha laptops there. I think a smart machine that can talk their language and teach their village to write might be pretty cool...1000 of them and an instructor would be really cool...

Dumping stupid electronics on starving people and doing the humanitarian dance is not the vision I am thinking more like sending my sweet school-teacher aunt some school supplies.

Yeah ,why sent them desks when they don't have pencils to eat..

Or should I help my uncles church send desks to where they need them,that has a very good chance of succeeding.

I'm very confused by your reply which seems to be totally self-contradictory concerning both the computers and the desks.

If you send computers, I would bet that they never make it past the port of entry, and if they do make it to the villages, the villagers are going to sell them to raise money to buy survival items like food, clothes, and medical supplies. If the villagers don't sell them, someone is going to steal them and sell them in town. I know what I'm talking about. I spent eight years in Africa, and I can tell you that you are totally out-of-touch with African realities.

I don't know how long your relatives have been in Somalia, but if they haven't tried to import items in bulk, and if they aren't intimately familiar with village life, they aren't the ones to ask for advice. As I said before, I suggest that you contact GMO's in Somalia who have the experience needed to give good advice.

[Willie Lumplump]

I've been writing "GMO's" (genetically modified organisms) when I meant "NGO's" (nongovernment organizations). A mere slip of the brain.