Search results for: kasese humanist school

The year is swiftly drawing to a close—this is your last chance to distribute your donations among our five featured beneficiaries for the fourth quarter of 2013. Here’s a quick look at this quarter’s amazing beneficiaries:

Water Ecuador is working to improve access to clean water in rural Ecuador. Their water centers help the local communities in a number of ways: Each center provides affordable, clean water (up to 8,000 liters every day) at about one-fifth the price of water shipped in from a major city, and then they use the revenues generated by water purchases to pay for maintenance of the water center and the water manager’s salary. Pathfinders Project will be working with Water Ecuador in 2014 to help with clean water education and construction of their newest water center. 

Bat Conservation International is leading the crusade to educate people about the importance of bats to our ecosystems, and to protect bats from the many threats facing them today. White-nose syndrome is an epidemic decimating North American bat populations—BCI is working to stop the spread of the disease through education and outreach. They also work to protect bat habitats, like the Bracken Cave in Texas, where a new housing development could mean disaster for the local bats.

Roots and Wings International improves access to education for indigenous people in Guatemala. Their college scholarships allow students to train for skilled professions and then return to their home community to put their education to work. In 2011, FBB members funded a grant to RWI that established their Foundation Beyond Belief scholarship. Our FBB scholar, Miguel Lamberto Sohom Tzáj, has used the scholarship to study medicine at University Rafael Landívar en Xela. Each donation of $3,800 is enough to fully fund a scholarship, so FBB member donations in the fourth quarter of 2013 will likely be enough to fund two or three new RWI scholarships. 

Apopo approaches human rights with a unique blend of science, technology, and animal activism—they train African giant pouched rats to search for landmines and screen for tuberculosis. Apopo’s HeroRATs start their training at just four weeks old, beginning with socialization and moving on to honing their exceptional sense of smell. The program creates local jobs in areas such as Thailand, Angola, and Dar es Salaam, where trainers are hired from local populations to work with the organization.

The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice is an interfaith coalition that promotes reproductive health and choice. They focus on the ethical reasons for choice and personal responsibility, using their beliefs to support reproductive rights, and they fight against the often religiously motivated reasoning used to oppose reproductive access on both national and state levels. Recently they’ve been speaking out against overly broad religious exemptions in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and calling attention to the plight of immigrants and undocumented workers, who are vulnerable to violence and have limited access to contraception and reproductive health care.

This quarter’s Small Grant is funding our new FBB Kiva.org account. Starting in 2014, funds raised for this grant will be used to create a Foundation Beyond Belief microfinance account, which will immediately make a significant number of $25 loans. Our goal is to use only secular microfinance institutions (MFIs) and concentrate on loans that have fast repayments (6 to 9 months). The Foundation Beyond Belief Kiva account will join the Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Freethinkers, Secular Humanists and the Non-Religious team.

The Pathfinders are currently in Ghana working with Leo Igwe’s camp for those accused of witchcraft. According to Conor Robinson, the director of Pathfinders Project, “The visit to the camp for alleged witches has been even more meaningful than expected. Internet is limited, but we are working hard to collect the heartbreaking stories of these victims of superstition and prepare them to be shared. The human rights abuses suffered by these women are unimaginable. There is no redress and very little aid.” Earlier this quarter, they worked with Kasese Humanist Primary School, Mustard Seed School, and Isaac Newton High School in Uganda, and the Alliance for African Women’s Initiative in Ghana. Click here to support their ongoing worldwide service trip.

Our year-end fund drive is off to a great start! Thanks to generous donors, we’ve raised about half of our goal of $15,000. Your donations to our year-end drive support our Humanist Giving program, the 80+ secular teams doing volunteer service as part of our Beyond Belief Network, our Humanist Crisis Response program, and the Pathfinders Project and Humanist Action: Ghana, launching in 2014. Click here to make a donation and get our fifth year of compassionate humanism off to a roaring start.

Don’t forget to sign in to your account and allocate your donations for the fourth quarter (on the right side of the page, choose “Manage Donation”).

By Conor Robinson, Pathfinders Project director

The Pathfinders arrived in Kasese, Uganda, after nearly 30 hours of travel from Cambodia. Plenty of time to reflect on the completion of one project even as we prepared for the next.

I am pleased to report that our time in Cambodia allowed us to accomplish what we set out to do. Through our service, we facilitated authentic interactions with the Cambodians that far surpassed what we would have been able to communicate by language alone. We gained an understanding of the problems Cambodians face, and the long-term projects a Humanist Action: Ghana could undertake to address them in partnership with Bridge of Life School. Humanists with entrepreneurial experience could have a significant impact on the business ventures that support Bridge of Life School’s educational programming, and humanists with education experience could shape the programming itself.

Humanist volunteers could also bolster Bridge of Life School’s clean water efforts. Nearly all rural Cambodians pollute their own water supply with their waste. Cambodians living on lakes or rivers use these waters as bathrooms and then fish or draw water from them. Cambodians living on dry land make toilet ditches that are just above the water table. If we return to Cambodia with the Humanist Action: Ghana, we could design and implement a multiyear education, outreach, and construction project around getting Cambodians to use composting toilets.

Of course, there are many other areas where a Humanist Action: Ghana could focus its efforts. In the 28 years since the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, the Cambodian government has not only failed to build functioning civic structures, it has actively participated in the plundering and selling of Cambodian resources and land, all while pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars in aid money each year and even confiscating emergency food rations and selling those, too. Schooled in a culture of corruption and living on salaries too meager to survive, Cambodian schoolteachers demand daily bribes from their students in order to sit in class or have tests graded. Police officers will not investigate crimes unless the victims are able to pay. Even when convictions are made, perpetrators walk free after little to no jail time if they are able to sufficiently pad the judge’s pockets.

Thousands of years ago, the kings of Angkor built reservoirs and irrigation systems that allowed Cambodian farmers to harvest three or four rice crops per year. Now, Cambodia has almost no irrigated farmland and it is the sole Asian country that grows only one yearly rice crop. Through surviving writings, we know that in the year 245 Cambodians lived in one-room huts mounted on poles and cooked their meals over open fires under clay pots set atop three stones. Their bathrooms were open pits behind their homes. Not much has changed, and in many ways it has gotten worse.

Twenty-five percent of Cambodians have hepatitis B or C. Sixty-three percent have tuberculosis. 10,000 people, mostly children, die of diarrhea-related diseases every year. Five women die of childbirth every day. The average Cambodian makes less than $600 per year. More than one-third of the population lives on less than $1 per day.  

Despite all of the above, Cambodians remain a remarkably warm and open people, and it was difficult to depart from the friends we made there. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to read my post about the “Loving Kindness” that Cambodia’s Buddhist monks recognized in our humanism, or Ben’s post about the bonds we created during our week in rural Kampong Thom. The pictures on the website say more about our connections with our students than any post could.

Even as we are in full teaching swing in Uganda, I encourage you once again to contribute to Bridge of Life School. The organization is doing fantastic work, and even though it is structured so that the revenue from its business ventures supports its educational programming, its reach is expanded by donations.

The Pathfinders also need your support, as does Kasese Humanist Primary School. A donation to Pathfinders Project while we are in Kasese has a direct impact on the lives of Ugandan students. As much good as KHPS is doing, and it really is a bastion of reason in a country of state-supported religious indoctrination, the school is severely limited by its resources. Donating to the Pathfinders will have an immediate impact at the school in the form of pens, pencils, exercise books, chalk, and sports equipment, all of which are sorely needed.

Pathfinders Project is a yearlong international service trip (July 2013–July 2014) sponsored by Foundation Beyond Belief. As they carry out their service work, the Pathfinders send us occasional reports about the projects, the places, and the people they meet along the way. Pathfinders Project Director Conor Robinson shared this inaugural report after the team’s launch in Los Angeles.

As I write to you, I am sitting on a plane to Cambodia. To the right of me are Wendy, Ben, and Michelle. Ahead of us, Bridge of Life School, Angkor Wat, intercultural exchange, challenge, and growth. Behind us, two fantastic weeks of service and training in Los Angeles.

Ben and Wendy arrived on the 16th of July, just in time for a screening of God Loves Uganda at LA’s LGBTQ film festival, Outfest. The film documents the aggressive actions of missionaries from American conservative Christian organizations such as IHOP, the International House of Prayer. Efforts by these organizations were among the factors that led to the drafting of legislation that seeks to criminalize homosexuality in Uganda. This legislation has not passed yet, and likely will not because of international pressure, but the homophobia behind it remains. Fortunately, there are organizations in Uganda that are promoting reason and compassion, organizations like Saint Paul’s Reconciliation and Equality Centre, led by Bishop Christopher Senyonjo, which provides a safe environment, contraception, and basic medical treatment to Ugandans with HIV and AIDS regardless of sexual orientation. The schools where the Pathfinders will be volunteering are also of critical importance in raising the next generation of Ugandan children. Schools such as the Kasese Humanist Primary School and the Mustard Seed Secondary School help children understand that all humans, regardless of race, culture, religion, or sexual orientation, are interdependent and valuable.

The very next night, Wendy, Ben, and I had the opportunity to see another important documentary at the Topanga Film Festival. There we watched Elemental, a documentary that follows the stories of an inventor who makes more efficient machines by observing efficient structures in the natural world, an environmental scientist on a pilgrimage to clean the Ganges, and an activist fighting to preserve the rights of indigenous Canadians living on land being destroyed by tar sands drilling. All in all, the documentary underscored the importance of the clean water work we will be doing in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Over the course of the following two weeks, Ben, Wendy, and I volunteered with the Westside Food Bank and TreePeople. Our work with the Westside Food Bank was a matter of sorting good fruit from bad and separating non-perishable food items by type, so that the items may be distributed to local social service organizations. In our work with TreePeople, we first tended to trees planted at Washington Elementary School to provide shade in the otherwise urban desert of Compton, and then helped to weed invasive species and water native ones as part of a habitat restoration project in the Santa Monica Mountains. 

The three of us also participated in one of Heal the Bay’s beach cleanups, an experience that illustrated the consequences of our consumption habits. When we first arrived at the beach alongside dozens of other volunteers, we didn’t think there would be anything for us to do. The beach appeared pristine. But when we got on our hands and knees and looked closely, we discovered millions of individual Styrofoam beads, all that is left of cups and plates after they make their journey from the gutter to the sea. Above the tideline, we also found fragments of plastic bags trapped under the leaves of the succulents that grow there. No matter how gently we tried to pick them up, they would often disintegrate between our fingers. Not your typical day at the beach.

The volunteering we did with each of the three Los Angeles organizations was simple but meaningful. The advantage of such uncomplicated volunteering tasks is that they allow for conversation. Incidentally, so does Los Angeles traffic. We bonded.

When we weren’t volunteering around Los Angeles, discussing cultural sensitivity, hiking around Topanga State Park, or cursing traffic on Pacific Coast Highway, the 10, or the 405, we were spreading the word about Pathfinders Project on Internet panels and in interviews. I encourage you to check out our “Meet the Pathfinders” panel that was part of FTBConscience, or our interviews on The Pink Atheist and Sgt. Skeptic podcasts. We also chatted with the folks at A-News, but that podcast isn’t up yet.   

Michelle arrived the morning of the 28th, just in time for a round of video interviews with Foundation Beyond Belief’s videographer, The Secular Human, and the Pathfinders Project launch party at Center for Inquiry–West’s Steve Allen Theater. The event featured hilarious and rousing performances by Gary Stockdale and Eric Schwartz, beautiful a cappella singing from Voices of Reason, and a Pathfinders Project panel moderated by our very own Dale McGowan. Major thanks to Bob Ladendorf and Jim Underdown of Center for Inquiry–West for letting us use the space, and to all of the supporters who came to join us in celebration! We will be posting pictures and video soon.

I have to sign off now or face the ire of the flight attendants. But before I do, I’d like you to consider this: On our flight there is a large Korean-American Christian missionary group from Orange County, California. I’ve spoken with the pastor and the pastor’s son about their work and the work of Pathfinders Project. In having such a conversation, the comparison between missionary work and our work cannot be avoided, and it shouldn’t be. Although initially put off by what I told them, ultimately the pastor and his son were impressed and even slightly chagrined about the lack of secular service involved in their itinerary, and the absence of ulterior motive in ours. Perhaps on their next trip they will incorporate more service alongside their proselytizing. Either way, I know they have an altered view of atheists and humanists as a result of our conversation.

We are making progress already, and we haven’t even begun our work in earnest. Please support us in this work by donating to Foundation Beyond Belief or directly to one of the Pathfinders, each of whom is fundraising $10,000 individually. We cannot do it without you.