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October 04, 2003
Subject: A message to potential donors
Friends,
OneVillage Foundation is a speck of the convergence
of global consciousness that we are all one. We care
about our future. We know we must work together to have
a future, so we have worked to understand how to do
so, and we have received a vision, which we would like
to share with you and the world.
This vision is to build on hope, toward a sustainable
future. It is to join the youth of the world, and especially
the youth leaders and the groups they serve, in a coordinated
response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa, especially
for the children. Our role in this is to identify and
maximize the potential of technologies to serve humanity,
and to design holistic strategies for eco-living –
for living in harmony with nature.
40 Million Hopefuls
It has been said that there are no meaningful celebrations,
anywhere, without children. Today there are 11 million
AIDS orphans worldwide – most of them in the developing
world. Just one child in distress can bring out amazing
compassion and hope in a community – and we are
expected to have 40 million AIDS orphans in the global
community by the year 2010. All these children are really
our children – more accurately, they are us, and
our hope for the future.
The Trappist monk Thomas Merton wrote, "The deepest
level of communication is not communication, but communion.
It is wordless. It is beyond words, and it is beyond
speech, and it is beyond concept. Not that we have to
discover a new unity. We discover an older unity� We
are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And
what we have to recover is our original unity. What
we have to be is what we are."
As part of the human family, we share in the responsibility
and the challenge of welcoming these children, supporting
them, and creating the conditions that will allow them
to build a sustainable future as they mature.
What we are Doing
to Realize the Vision
Technology Development
As one major step toward implementing the vision,
we are collaborating with the Dalai Lama Foundation,
which is committed to fostering peace and ethics in
the world, and with Mincius Sodas, an information technology
incubator in Lithuania. Each of us proposed a project
to the Soros Foundation Open Society Initiative.
The three projects complement each other. They support
knowledge sharing and communication to empower youth
leaders, their members, and the communities they serve.
The oneVillage Foundation proposal for a Community Knowledge
Delivery System is on our website. To review it, go
to the Empowerment
Programs for Sustainability page and click on Community
Knowledge Delivery System. When you click on the link
it will download to your desktop. Links to descriptions
of some of the other oneVillage Foundation projects
are there also.
The link to 40 Million Hopefuls gives you an Executive
Summary of oneVillage Foundation programs to assist
AIDS orphans, in a context of supporting the sustainability
of their communities.
Links to descriptions of some of the other oneVillage
Foundation projects are there also.
Organizing Youth
We are advising and working with key youth groups
in Africa and Europe in the WSIS Coalition. This coalition
is preparing a unified message to the World Summit of
the Information Society (WSIS): that a coordinated global
initiative to both confront the impacts of HIV/AIDS
and create sustainable economies, starting in developing
nations, is the top priority of the youth of the world.
Building Community Awareness of HIV/AIDS Prevention
and Care
OneVillage Ghana Director Kafui Prebbie is organizing
Sports People That Care, the second annual HIV/AIDS
and AIDS orphans benefit in Winneba, Ghana. It is set
for December 1, 2003, World AIDS Day.
Other Projects
- 40 Million Hopefuls –
Executive Summary of program to assist AIDS orphans
in a context of supporting the sustainability of the
community
- oneVillage Unity Center design
package
- Catch IT Young awareness
proposal
- Ecotourism program in Winneba,
Ghana
- Harvard-Columbia ecology
and economy integration initiative
- Humanitus Daily commentary
on Humanitus Radio
How you can make a difference!
We have totally committed ourselves to bring the vision
to life, so it can be shared. Now we ask for your support.
We invite you to invest in building the infrastructure
of hope in the towns and villages of Ghana, Nigeria,
Kenya, and South Africa – and beyond. Your investment
in any of the following areas will ultimately save many
lives, by enabling us to create social enterprises that
are strong enough to overcome inertia and doubt, and
to demonstrate the capacity of empowered youth at a
level that cannot be ignored.
$14,000 per month: bridge funding to support our preparatory
work.
$30,000 each: build, equip and staff Unity Center
prototypes.
$47,860: matching contribution for the $200,000 requested
in the Soros Foundation OSI grant proposal. Pledges
and contributions will be held until the grant awards
are announced. The announcements are scheduled to be
complete by December 10, 2003.
Our needs are immediate – the situation of AIDS
orphans is critical. Please take a look at the work,
take a look in your heart, and talk with us about how
you would like to make a difference in our world. You
can reach us using the contact information below.
Sincerely,
Joy Tang
Founder
Children are our teachers in society; if we learn
to listen we can also heal ourselves. That is good reason
to hope for the future. |
