Global Community Partners: GCP Update: Alive and Kicking

Saturday, June 6, 2009

GCP Update: Alive and Kicking

Sorry about the lack of an update since April. I really have been around, just absent from updating you on GCP. Since April my school life has practically taken over my life, and I am barely beginning to breathe again. I'm looking forward to a bit of time off in June to do absolutely nothing school-related before I hit the books again for my comprehensive (qualifying) exams that await me in late August. For those of you who are wondering what that is, we in the doctoral programs have to take qualifying exams in order to advance in our program; thus, if we fail them, we do not continue with our Ph.D. The exams in our department consist of oral and written exams. I just did the oral a couple of weeks ago and passed, praise God, and will be taking my written one about the 3rd week of August.

A lot of things have been simmering and brewing as far as GCP goes. This month I am planning to visit a farm - a global farm actually - called ECHO, located in southwest Florida. I am interested in seeing what they are all about. I have visited their website and it looks very interesting and presents some possibilities for our work in Malawi. In a nutshell, they specialize in agriculture tailored to the climate/soil of the place you're interested in. Agricultural techniques, seeds, and such are geared towards poorer countries and finding sustainable ways to cultivate produce as well as addressing some of the nutritional needs of the population such as those communities affected by HIV/AIDS.

Aside from that, and studying, I am exploring a couple of things which I will share with you as time progresses. I'm also beginning to mull over dissertation topics. So please pray for a successful and fruitful summer for me as well as of course that I pass my exams in August!

I hope to be able to share more exciting things as the year progresses. I've spent a bit of time talking with different people and am looking at a few avenues for GCP.

Thanks, as always, for your continued support and prayers! I hope that you are continuing to collect your spare change too!

Happy June!

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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.