Global Community Partners: GCP Montly Update: It is time

Thursday, July 3, 2008

GCP Montly Update: It is time

Happy July!!Summer is here and though it is hot, I am loving it! And the time has actually come to send all of you an update that I had hoped and prayed will come one day. It is time. It is time for actual tangible work to begin. While all the previous work was mostly prep, here we are looking at embarking on an actual project. Needless to say I am quite nervous, but also excited.

Preparations are almost done and now I just need to get some last minute stuff (like mosquito repellent). Got my shots and my malaria meds all squared away. I was a bit concerned about temporary employment permits (which apparently is needed according to the State Department website) in order to volunteer in Malawi; but having spoken to the Malawian Embassy that has become a non-issue, thankfully!! Progress has been made on fund-raising. I have posted updates on our blog: http://gcpwork.blogspot.com
There are updates on the Providing "Change" campaign as well as our proposal. We have a picture on one of our updates featuring our youngest "change-maker". Her name is Megan and she is 9 years old; and she collected $185. 91!! My parents were amazed at her collection, and inspired to find all their change and give it to me for the purposes of this campaign. Thanks Megan!!! We are still collecting change so if you have some change collecting for me, please let me know and we'll see how you can get it to us. L.A. folks - Sylvia will be at Ye-Bon next Sunday possibly (we will confirm with you in a separate email) to collect your change! Folks living in other areas - email me. :)

Our June yard sale was not very successful in that we only sold about $34 worth of items; we did receive a $100 donation to get the sale started, but alas, the heat reduced the amount of foot-traffic around the area. We donated the left-over items to the church we held the yard sale at as they are planning to hold one themselves.Thanks to all of you who gave us items; we really appreciated it!!

I have also received quite a bit of donations outside of the Providing "Change" campaign which I am very thankful for! I have raised enough to cover my flight from Johannesburg to Malawi and goodies for the teachers during my workshops. I am still short about $1000 for travel costs as well as anticipated costs during my time in Malawi conducting an assessment of resources and further partnership opportunities. If you feel so moved to partner with me in this project, we welcome your partnership! Checks can be made out to: Global Community Partners, and sent to 10329 Fernglen Avenue, Tujunga, CA 91042.

Lastly, we were successful in garnering 108 votes for the GiveMeaning proposal which is a website that allows us to fund-raise for a specific project/cause and is another vehicle for spreading the word and raising funds for the high school I will be at this August. This website allows people to browse through and donate to our project should they so desire. It is my first time doing this, and depending upon how successful it is, we will be doing other projects through this site in the future. So keep your eye out on that as well: http://www.givemeaning.com/proposal/communitymalawi

So these are all the fund-raising updates. I will be posting a prayer calendar in the next week and I'd appreciate your prayers while I'm on this trip. I am concerned about some things but I know that God is in control. Still I would appreciate your prayers. I don't know if I have shared this but I am also presenting at a conference in South Africa before I head to Malawi (which is why unfortunately I had to cut my trip to Malawi one week shorter than I had intended). But, the conference is a good opportunity for me to talk to other people who work and study in the area of social welfare and make connections. So all in all, I really need your prayers as this conference presentation is my first, and I'm very very nervous!! For those of you who are interested, my presentation will be on a paper that I wrote for a class called Fundamental Issues behind the Concepts Surrounding Foreign Aid: A Freirian Perspective.

Thanks, as always, for all your support, your encouragement, and your prayers!!! I am eternally grateful!!!

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Our Vision

Global Community Partners’ vision is to build partnerships in developing community around children all over the world. Supporting this vision are our guiding values that are integral to our organization. All our guiding values are based upon a way of work and life as followers of Jesus. We are a Christian organization that believes in one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and believe further that Jesus lived, died, and rose again. We believe that Jesus is an integral part of our lives and in Him, we see the example of how we are to care for those around us. Our work is guided by the following principle beliefs:

Children’s Rights

- We believe that children are vitally important to the improvement of our future. As delineated in the UN Convention of Children’s Rights and other such documents, children have rights that must be valued and protected, particularly in those places where poverty and crises exist.

Child-focused Community

- We believe that his/her environment, immediate, and removed, influences every child. Therefore, focus on children must also include education of the immediate community and raising the awareness of the global community. We believe in providing tools for the immediate and global communities through education, support, and training.

Community Partnership

- We believe in partnerships, partnerships with existing communities to help build a stronger, empowered community that can in turn help empower their children. We believe in building relationships in these communities and we believe in long-term goals rather than short-term goals, or one-time trainings, meaning that we are willing to work on an on-going basis with communities to provide input, education, and training on a long-term and on-going basis. These community partnerships include governmental organizations, non-governmental organizations, and other entities.

Respect for Culture

- We respect the cultural diversity of the global community and therefore believe in working with each community on an individual basis to incorporate cultures and traditions in coming up with a viable way to improve community. We believe in being responsible and maintaining respect for the communities we work with, the culture, the traditions, and the environment.

Overall Principle

- We believe that people, particularly children and their families, are integral and central to our work and to that end, we commit to uphold these guiding principles in the presence of God and of each other. We believe that there is no substitute for the manner in which we think, work, and live and our commitment to these guiding values must be evident in our interaction with each other, the communities we work with, and the global community at large.
Targeted beneficiaries will ultimately be children, but beneficiaries will also include the community around these children – families, immediate and extended, as well as other adult community members. Activities that GCP will undertake include research, program development, and implementation of programs as well as monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of program.