Backpacks for Peace: Project for Learning and Giving

In the spirit of this season of giving, we welcome your contribution to inspire 20 youth in making 300 Backpacks for Peace through our innovative training program. The cost of making a backpack is approximately $10, so a generous gift of $50 will get us that much closer to our goal. For the second year in the row, Uniting Distant Stars will invite some of Liberia’s promising young men and women leaders to participate in the March 6, 2015 Nobel Peace Prize Forum Youth Festival organized by youthrive, a Minnesota-based non-profit.

Three Liberian youth modeling our backpacks in each color--white, blue and red

The Backpacks for Peace project will instill peace building within the community and re-spark their creative flame by using recycled plastic to make the backpacks.  The first phase of the program focused on teaching four trainees on how to sew the backpacks and care for the sewing machines as future trainers of this program. The goal of the first phase was to make 250 backpacks to be given to the students at our adopt-a-school program as part of our 4th Annual School Supply Drive.

Video shows launch of our first phase of this project on 09/26/14; narrated by Kelvin Fomba, UDS Co-founder and Country Director.

Twenty young men and women from primary to post-secondary education will launch the second phase of our backpack training program the beginning of January 2015 by making 300 bags that they will give to the beneficiaries of the Straight From the Heart Center in Liberia. This center was founded by Agnes Fallah Kamara-Umunna to provide a space for rehabilitation, reintegration, and reconciliation for youth who were on all sides of Liberia’s Civil War. Agnes is the author of the book “And Peace Still Did Not Come: A Memoir of Reconciliation”.

Photos: Left is project team lead and professional tailor Charles Mamba sitting at his machine on left that he has donated for this project. Next two photos show three of the four trainees.

We have already raised $590 towards our goal of $3,000 to buy four more sewing machines and the supplies such as zippers and thread, to make 300 backpacks. Our partner—African Dream Academy—has been donating the recycled plastic drinking water sachets, the primary material for the backpacks.

No	Items	Qty	Unit Cost	Total Cost
1	Machine	4 each	190 USD	760 USD
2	Zippers	600 yards	2 USD	1,200 USD
3	Thread	3 cartons	50 USD	150 USD
4	Scissors	5 each	10 USD	50 USD
5	Machine needles	3 packets	25 USD	75 USD
6	Machine oil	8 bottles	4 USD	32 USD
7	Cloth Lining	3 rolls	50 USD	150 USD
8	Participant Benefits			583 USD
			TOTAL	3.000 USD

Your contribution is not only tax-deductible; it is also developing a sustainable youth training program that teaches life-long skills in sewing and marketing a product needed by many Liberian youth. The need for rebuilding from the Liberian Civil War is still relevan, and it is even more urgent now due to the Ebola epidemic that recently devastated many families in Liberia.

Our team has been working hard and made nearly 200 backpacks when this photo was taken.

Please support our Backpacks for Peace service learning project with a donation by PayPal or by check to Uniting Distant Stars, Inc. and mail to:

Uniting Distant Stars, Inc.

4010 Lawndale LN N

Plymouth, MN 55446

Thank You For Your Generous Support

Reflection

January has been busy preparing for yet another exciting year. As we look ahead to our plans for 2014, we also reflect back on what we accomplished since our beginnings in 2012. It was reassuring to see that our humble organization is making progress that is small-small (an expression used in Liberia).

This post highlights some project milestones and features photographs taken by Heather during her first year of residency in Liberia, a beautiful tropical nation along the coast of West Africa. 

This image was created in 2007, filling the map outline of Liberia with photos of Coconut trees in Bong County
 and the pre-sunset ocean view along beach in Congo Town.

What compelled us to start Uniting Distant Stars? The co-founders Heather Cannon-Winkelman and Kelvin Fomba had an idea to start a vocational training center that balanced the job skills with the job-keeping skills. The latter component is often lacking in training programs to where many of the graduates emerged ill-prepared for such workplace expectations as punctuality and appropriate behavior. In our attempt to make this dream a reality we applied for a fellowship in 2010 and 2011 for start-up funding.

June 2007 - Kpatawee ("K" is silent) Waterfall in Bong County.

Both attempts failed to move us to the next level. As we reassessed the application process and the finalists, we noticed a pattern. Those making through each "gate' had projects or programs that were producing results. This is when we realized that we needed to start a program that showed we were walking our talk. 

November 2007 - Heading east through Grand Bassa County.

By July 2012, we transformed the essence of Uniting Distant Stars. Besides being a blog it was a bona fide organization serving disadvantaged youth through education. We provided primary and secondary school scholarships, vocational training tuition assistance, and a school supply drive for Russ Wood Christian Academy.

November 2007 - Nature's funny way to ask "Why" - Grand Bassa County

It was the school supply drive that attracted the most interest and we  slowly increased our circle of supporters. This momentum got us thinking about what we should do next and we started off 2013 with many ambitious goals. We met most, including:

• Published our first annual report, listing 2012activities and 2013 goals.
• Formed our U.S. based board of directors.
• Registered Uniting Distant Stars, Inc as a Minnesota Non-Profit Corporation.
• Secured our fiscal sponsor, Ebenezer Community Church in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota.
• Organized three successful fundraisers focused on programs in Liberia. 
• Shipped four 14-cubic-foot boxes for Russ Wood Christian Academy.
• Developed working partnerships with organizations in both Minnesota and Liberia.
• Held first annual youth leadership workshop in Liberia on "creative and innovative thinking"

2007 - Sunset along Golden Beach in Monrovia

In summary, 2013 was an amazing year. It opened new pathways for us to expand our network of donors, followers and partners. That success is the driving force to continue developing and growing our programs in the coming year. Learn more about what we achieved in 2013 and what is in store for 2014 in our next annual report, to be published in April. Uniting Distant Stars exists because of the passion and dedication of all who have generously supported us. Thank you!

Liberian Youth Define Leadership Qualities

Since our return from Liberia in September, we have been reviewing the data we gathered from the young men and women who participated in our two-day workshop. One of the documents that our young participants completed was a pre-workshop information form. This form listed ten questions focusing on problem solving, helping others, character building and much more. The purpose of this form was to better understand these young mindsets before they were challenged by the two-day creative and innovative thinking workshop.

One of the questions asked on this form was "what are three qualities you find important in a leader?" When reviewing these forms a few days before the workshop, we were quite impressed by their responses. Clearly, they can visualize what makes a good leader despite being confronted examples of corrupt leadership. So, it seems fitting that their thoughtful effort be shared with a greater audience.

How does one best convey what these young Liberian men and women named are important leadership attributes? Well, it was not going to be easy, because there were 54 respondents and some of the qualities were mentioned more than once. Of course the obvious option would be to publish a simple list that would start with the most important trait at the top. However, it would do little to symbolize what they saw as the ideal leader.

So, the next option was to illustrate their ideas in what is known as a word cloud (i.e. tag cloud) as shown below.

 This graphic has many layers to its design. The leadership qualities that were mentioned more than once were carefully laid out within the national borders of Liberia. The green background with the brown edging represents Liberia's lush rain forest and fertile ground, which is ready to be planted with the purposeful seeds of these emerging leaders. The color and size of each word represents the number of times a particular quality was mentioned.

Here are the most commonly named qualities:

1. Patient: selected 9 times
2. Respectful: selected 7 times
3. Innovative and Visionary: selected 6 times each
4. Committed, Compassionate, Good Listener, Humble & Open: selected 5 times each  
5. Green qualities: selected 4 times each
6. Yellow qualities: selected 3 times each
7. Red qualities: selected 2 times each

This word cloud was not able to accommodate all the qualities that were chosen. Therefore, the illustration below shows the "The Honorable Mentions" for the leadership traits that were only selected once.

Both visuals will be included in our workshop next October when we return to Liberia. As we prepare for next year, we want to continue to find creative and thoughtful ways to capture what these young people expressed before, during and after the workshop. There is much to be gained from their insights and perspectives about the world. Let's face it...our young men and women around the world are the next leaders in business, government, academia and so forth. This is why we value their input and inspire them to become the next great leaders of the 21st century.

Campaign: Youth Leadership Workshop on Innovative Creative and Innovative Thinking - Liberia

Globally, civil wars have stripped many young people in developing nations of their childhood and sometimes their humanity.  Conditioned by what they witnessed or by direct involvement as conscripted child soldiers, many still resort to violence as the preferred means of resolving conflict and solving problems.  During peacetime, they are easily persuaded to participate in riots and public protests over the lack of jobs or food or education.  A prime example is Liberia, a tiny West African nation that sustained total destruction of its infrastructure while civil war raged from 1989 to 2003.  The most devastating losses however were the hopes and dreams of its youth.  Today some young Liberians are graduating from college with little chance of finding conventional employment.  The national rate of underemployment/unemployment hovers around 85%.   Many pessimistically believe that their true destiny is to be a vendor in the already saturated open-air markets.   Such a narrow view can only be broadened by introducing creative thinking

Our crowdfunding project is a revolutionary, invitation-only international youth leadership workshop, to be held on September 13 and 14, 2013 in ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Monrovia, Liberia. It will:

• Engage and inspire young Liberians to develop their own grassroots innovative projects that address problems they would like to solve.
• Provide a collaborative and supportive space where our young participants can re-light their flame of boundless imagination and creative spirit that was snuffed out by war and suppressive institutions.
• Guide our young participants to channel their energy into creative projects that can effect positive change in their lives and the people around them.
• Assist Liberia’s future leaders, innovators, and educators to re-discover their potential and how they can make a difference.

 ECC Youth Group giving a message of hope for their peers in Liberia

The workshop will begin with stories of real-life role models—young African boys and girls who broke free of the chains of hopelessness and almost miraculously created innovative projects with little or no resources. These amazing youth include:

• William Kawkwamba of Malawi, whose story is told in his book “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.” In 2001, when only 14 years old, he built his first windmill to generate electricity for his house, using his inborn talent, an English-language text book, and items from a local scrap yard.  He did this despite a deadly famine that forced him to drop out of school. His second, more powerful windmill was built to help irrigate his family’s maize crops.

• Duro-AinaAdebola, Akindele Abiola and Faleke Oluwatoyin, and Bello Eniola, four teenage girls from Nigeria who developed a process using human urine—an abundant and renewable resource—to power a generator with an initial investment of $64. They also found a way to eliminate the smell of “pee” to alleviate the concerns of working with a form of human waste.

• KelvinDoe of Sierra Leone, who pulled electronic parts from trash dumps to make his own battery and generator.  He later created his own radio station and took the name “DJ Focus” due to his belief that focus is necessary to develop projects. He was invited to MIT as one of the youngest visiting inventors after his story was shared on YouTube.

Day 1: Our participants will analyze and discuss each of these inspirational stories, reviewing the resources used and how projects were implemented. They will also hear from Liberian social innovators like Alfred Sirleaf, who have successfully launched grassroots initiatives. After exposure to these examples of innovation, they will be encouraged to note down in sketches or words what resources they can access for developing their own projects and addressing the problems they hope to solve.

Day 2: UDS will provide an open lab environment where our budding inventors can incubate their ideas, to be birthed into viable projects. They will be encouraged to work independently and in groups to conduct experiments using the resources they gathered to test their ideas. Additionally, they will hear about opportunities to develop and grow their project from our Liberian partners:

• Accountability Lab will introduce their Accountapreneurship Funds which provides small grants to “harness the creativity of citizens to solve problems in their own communities.”

• The Business Start-up Center at the University of Liberia’s main campus, will share their services that “stimulate and develop young and ambitious entrepreneurs through Training, business plan competitions and facilitates access to finance as a way of promoting SME development and growth in Liberia.”

Also, UDS will award seed money for the top two collaborative project ideas developed by our young visionaries, who are ready to address the social or economic problems within their communities. The best two projects will be determined by the votes of all participants.

This is a $2,500 project that will provide (click here to see concept proposal):

• Food and transportation for all participants 
• A one-night stay for the 8 attendees from the rural areas
• Workshop materials
• Two $200 seed grants
• Other logistical costs

Your pledge in supporting this project will aid and encourage our emerging youth leaders to explore, develop and implement their creative and innovative ideas that will help heal and rebuild their nation. No amount is too small to be part of the journey that these young people will take in reclaiming the gift they were born with and to give them the chance to become contributing members of their communities and the world.

Listen to what Josh Tabla of the ECC Youth Group has to say about supporting this workshop.

We value your involvement in this project and want to appreciate your pledge as follows:

• Pledge $5 or more: the Liberian youth will be forever gratefu

• Pledge $20 or more:

o   The Liberian youth will joyfully sing your name out loud;

o   Your name will be listed on the Uniting Distant Stars sponsorship page for this workshop as a supporter.

• Pledge $50 or more:

o   The youth of Liberia will repeatedly chant your name while dancing in jubilation

o   Your name will be listed on the Uniting Distant Stars sponsorship page for this workshop as a supporter and included on the 2014 annual report.

• Pledge $100 of more:

o   The Liberian youth will consider you as their global auntie and uncle

o   Your name will be listed on the Uniting Distant Stars sponsorship page for this workshop, included on the 2014 annual report, and added to the "banner of hope" that will be displayed during this two-day workshop.

Please pledge by check or PayPal by following the instructions below.

Checks: Make out the checks to ECC and put UDS Workshop on the memo Line and send to

Uniting Distant Stars

c/o Heather Cannon-Winkelman

4010 Lawndale LN N

Plymouth, MN 55466

*PayPal: Go to www.ebenezercommunitychurch.com and scroll down to Contact Us box on the left hand side. Select Uniting Distant Stars in the Donation Category dropdown menu and then click the PayPal button (see image below).

 

*PayPal charges a 2.2% plus $0.30 per transaction fee that will be deducted from your donation.

 Your generous pledge is tax deductible through our fiscal sponsor Ebenezer Community Church in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota.