A Space for Learning, Sharing, Creating, and Income Generation: Vlog #2!

In his second video blog Grant welcomes the Project FOCUS community to the empty space that will soon be transformed into the community Internet Cafe. He also introduces Michael, the founder of our partnering organization, ICOD, and takes us on a brief trip to the Lyantonde market where we can see and hear some local flavors of the community.

Enjoy!

Our First Video Blog from Uganda!

Welcome to the first of my video blogs from Uganda.

I hope this can help you to feel a little more connected to the lives you've touched in Lyantonde through your support of Project Focus and our work here. This is an introduction, and with each posting I'll try to go a little deeper into life in Lyantonde.

Since I'm flying solo out here your comments and feedback would help me frame the postings in ways you'll enjoy and learn from.

All my gratitude,

Grant Buhr

International Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day, a day to celebrate the strengths and accomplishments of women around the world. For me, the first person who came to mind was my grandmother, someone who decided after the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 to fight for compensation of her Jewish grandfather's textile business that was taken away by the Nazi government. She did all this from Argentina, where she grew up and lives today, and though it took her nearly eight years to fight the case she and her cousins were finally compensated.

It is women like my grandmother who have paved the way for me to do the work I do now, and be involved in organizations like Project FOCUS.

Recently I spoke with my grandmother over skype. She called me from Buenos Aires to congratulate us on our worldview spot that she listened to after seeing it posted as my skype status. She shared how inspired she was by our project to bring Internet to a community in rural Uganda. We began to talk about the complexities of development work and activism, and I found myself connecting with her in a way I had not before.

So Happy International Women's Day, in honor of all our grandmothers and these beautiful moments that connect us.

Here is a video from the World Food Programme made especially for today:

PF's Internet Cafe Featured in Global Giving's Technology for Good Initiative

PF is getting noticed as more and more people are recognizing that connecting people is fundamental to the global economy, to societies, to infrastructure, and to life.

One of Global Giving's corporate partners, Ericsson, has selected Project FOCUS' internet cafe in Lyantonde, Uganda as one of six projects that they are promoting as part of their Technology for Good giving campaign!

To view our project on Global Giving, click here.

To make an investment, visit our microsite and click 'Invest Now'

When Good Intentions Meet the Law.

In the wake of the devastating earthquake in Haiti this January - with an estimated 200,000 dead, 300,000 injured, millions made homeless, and a country's infrastructure in rubbles - one particular story has gripped the international media's attention.

Recently, a group of 10 U.S. missionaries were jailed in Haiti on child abduction charges after the group was caught attempting to remove 33 children from the country without government authorization or papers. The missionaries have denied any wrongdoing and insist they were acting with noble intentions trying to rescue children from the devastating earthquake. They believed that the children were orphans and came from a reputable orphanage. However, it's been since reported that nearly half of the Haitian children are believed to have at least one living parent.

When I first came across the story I had a visceral reaction that told me something was fundamentally wrong. It's not the just the actions of the 10 missionaries that were troubling to me, but the underlying assumptions that motivated this group of well-intentioned Americans to jump on a plane, swoop into a country in chaos, and attempt to rescue children in desperate need. These assumptions are not unique to this group from Idaho; they are shared to varying degrees by most of the development community.

Here are 5 assumptions to be wary of - most times they manifest themselves in subtle and complex ways:

1) Good intentions are good enough.

2) Tragedies like the earthquake in Haiti can be addressed with quick-fixes.

3) Children in desperate conditions need rescuing from the West.

4) A warm bed, food and a decent education are preferable to one's family, community, and cultural heritage

5) Local customs and local laws can be easily ignored.

This story is a sobering reminder for those of working in international community development that good intentions are not enough, that naive idealism can be dangerous, and that the real victims in this story are not the well-intentioned missionaries and volunteers that have been imprisoned, but the 33 Haitian children (and hundreds of thousands more) who still remain homeless and parentless.

Project FOCUS interviewed on Chicago Public Radio's Worldview

Project FOCUS is being featured on Chicago Public Radio's Worldview today, Thursday, February 18th at 12:00pm and again at 9:00pm (CST).

Grant Buhr, will speak with host Jerome McDonnell on the weekly Global Activism series about the history of Project FOCUS, our philosophies, and our current development project - a solar-powered Internet cafe in Southwestern Uganda.

If you're in chicago, tune into WBEZ 91.5 FM.
or Click Here to listen live via WBEZ online.

A nod from Change.org

Nathaniel Whittemore -editor of the Social Entrepreneurship blog on Change.org- pens some accolades to the PF process, while reminding us and all social entrepreneurs of the importance of balance when considering scale and relationships.

Nathaniel writes:

"To me, the lesson here isn't that social entrepreneurs should abruptly abandon their ambitions to scale up. Complex global problems require massive solutions, and when it comes to changing systems, scale is essential. What's more, the dichotomy of "breadth" vs. "depth" is a false one. The best social entrepreneurs have to understand how to balance both.

At the same time, I do think PF's story is a reminder of the value of going deep to connect with, learn from, and be an ambassador for a community. It also demonstrates that there's strength to be found in different kinds of social entrepreneurs, all working in their own way to make an incredible difference."

Read the full PF blog at socialentrepreneurship.change.org here

Haiti: Development wake-up call

(Photo: Mark Ovaska/ovaska.com)

In the wake of Haiti’s mammoth earthquake we’re seeing the harsh repercussions of neglecting the development of locally controlled infrastructure in and around Port-au-Prince. Social media platforms in the west have done a tremendous job of rallying a compelling and urgent response, but without the basic IT and power grid operations on the ground, Twitter and Facebook haven’t managed to make relief efforts any easier to carry out, nor have they told the complete story of Haiti’s abject poverty. Slavery, war, deforestation, and political instability (US intervention) have long been laying the groundwork for a disaster of this scale.

NY Times op-ed columnist David Brooks reminds us that the 1989 7.0 earthquake in Northern California killed 63 people, compared to approx 45,000 in and around Port-au-Prince. It’s also been reported that Haiti has more NGO’s per capita that anywhere on the planet (more than Northern Uganda?). The influx of donations right now is imperative to saving lives, but if the US’s aid and development strategy isn’t one that builds local capacity, and continues long after the Retweets and text messages die down, it may leave Haiti with less control over its future than ever.

If you’re in Chicago on Monday, January 25 check out the Café Society discussion at Intelligentsia Coffee: Haiti’s hard times: Are we helping or hurting even more?

Whether you can make it out not, consider these questions:

What has been your reaction to the crisis in Haiti? Do you think the way aid is being dispensed will truly help Haitians? What role should the U.S. play in Haiti now? What are your ideas for helping Haiti become a truly democratic and stable country? What sources of information are you relying on to understand Haiti? Is there hope for Haiti? Why or why not? What does the rest of the world owe Haiti now?

And these resources:

From Tweets to YouTube, world gets a clearer view of Haiti's suffering

The Disaster of the Century: How to Help Haiti

Local efforts to help Haiti

Our role in Haiti's plight

U.S. Marines Land in Villages on the Edge

Rich Nations Call for Haiti Debt Relief

Haiti: The Pearl of the Antilles

U.S. Corporations, Private Mercenaries and the IMF Rush in to Profit from Haiti's Crisis

Lyantonde Connected Video - Spread the Love!!!

Have you ever wondered how a video gets viral? How in just a few days it becomes a cultural phenomenon that everyone seems to knows about?

We wonder about that too.

We think it has something to do with friends blasting a link to other friends through e-mail, facebook, gchat messages, twitter, and blogs.

http://www.youtube.com/user/ProjectFOCUSorg

Help us prove that an online community can gather enough support to provide the internet to a rural community in Uganda without it.

Spread the internet love. Make an investment. Repeat.

Read more and INVEST here - http://www.projectfocus.org/current