This post is by Epic Change Co-Founder, Sanjay Patel.

On January 20th, the Silicon Valley Tweetup held it’s first event of 2010 for Shepherds Jr. School in support of the Twitterkids of Tanzania. Over 200 people braved the rainy weather to gather in the heart of Silicon Valley, and I had the great pleasure of attending this fun event. In addition to meeting an incredible group of individuals, over $2,300 was raised to support Mama Lucy’s efforts!

All of the funds raised will go toward a much-needed orphanage/boarding facility at the school. The total estimated cost of the facility is USD $50,000 which will accommodate approximately 50 children. Every $1,000 raised will ensure that one more child has a warm, safe place to call home, with a loving Mama from their community to make nutritious meals and tuck them in at night.

I was just amazed by the turnout and felt great pride knowing that such a large number of people support Epic Change and Shepherds Jr. School, a primary school many thousands of miles away in Tanzania. I want to thank Michael Brito for organizing this incredible event and for personally inviting me to attend.

Here’s what Michael had to say about the event.

I’m humbled. I’m humbled because the people of Silicon Valley stepped up big time. The fact that we raised over $2,300 for an awesome cause justifies every stressful moment we had planning this event. And for this reason, we will continue with these tweetups and make an even stronger effort to support local & global organizations.

You can read more of Michael’s reflections on the Silicon Valley Tweetup Blog, view event photos here, or click below to see video from the event.

Posted: February 15th, 2010 under The Foundry.
Comments: 1

At the end of 2009, to help us celebrate TweetsGiving and attend the European Summit for Global Transformation, Mama Lucy visited the Netherlands and the United States for the very first time. Here’s what she had to say about her journey…

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

From my first visit to Europe and US late last year 2009, I’m still having so much to tell as it was of great experience. I attended the European Summit for Global Transformation in Rotterdam, The Netherlands from the 20th – 22nd of November 2009. People from 23 countries all over the world gathered to share their experience, learn more from each other and an opportunity to make new friendship. I was thrilled by young people with great minds like Maggie Doyne, Subhash Ghimire, Renu Bagharia, Oluwatoyin Ajao and many more. They have been doing great things at their young ages.

Apart from being connected to each other (participants), we were all reminded of very important points which I’m glad to share with everyone. This world is not just the planet; it’s our home. We need to know about Environmental justice and crisis. Whatever we are doing, we are part and parcel of the Environment. We need to ask ourselves:

• Where are we?
• How did we get here?
• What is possible for the future?
• Where do we go from here?

In what ever you do, you can not be far from the environment. We are connected to it. We just want to give rights to humans but we don’t care about giving rights to the natural things. How do we care about people, surroundings, animals etc? If we do these, we do for ourselves. We need to do from our hearts. It needs to be a commitment of everyone.

That was just a peanut of so much I experienced at The ESGT. Thanks to the organizers team led by Rebecca Self.

From Europe, I connected to the US, where I visited New York City, Florida, San Fransisco – Califonia, and Washington DC. Let me share with you few of my experience of this amazing place.

During Thanksgiving holiday, the Epic Change team connected people all over the world through TweetsGiving, aiming on supporting our dream of making the world a better place to live through education and shelter. I was thrilled by how people were sending their gratitude in a totally different way. A classroom 7 and a Library for our school in Tanzania were made possible. I was SO happy to see how people can do great things within very few hours. People did it because it came from their heart and everyone did it happily. It was a lesson to me.

I met so many people and I wondered how they know so much about what we are doing in Tanzania. I came to learn how word can spread. The power of social media. Epic Change knew its vital power and always is close to them. To be open and speaking up can lead someone somewhere. No one will know unless you tell them what’s going on.

I didn’t know how big The US is, until we traveled from one state to another. I didn’t expect to be in a plane for more than 6 hours just from Florida to San Fransisco. I knew it was closer as it’s just within one country. The weather was also another good experience to me. Within one country, a certain place is very warm while the other part is freezing. I experienced this when we moved from Florida to DC. I couldn’t believe I was within one country.

At my home Tanzania, we used to buy meat from the butcher shops whereby they just hang meat and when you go, they cut for you the quantity you want. I didn’t come across the butcher shop in US. Only supermarkets with frozen meat. You won’t see blood on meat as we normally see here.

The variety of things at the supermarkets, would make me take some hours to choose something to take as a right choice. How can I choose bread from more than 20 different types of it. I don’t know if my friends Stacey and Sanjay have tasted even half of the different kinds of cheese they have in supermarkets. I came to learn that Americans are having more than what they need.

We used to cook everything from the scratch. If you want your family to have beans, you need to take some hours to cook. not less than 2 hours. I was surprised to see my friends (Stacey & Sanjay) just took less than 10 minutes to prepare food; just because everything is read to eat. I came to learn that we, Tanzanians if not all Africans are using most of our time doing unproductive work (cooking, washing dishes, clothes etc) instead of productive things. How can we compensate wasted hours for so many years of our lives?

When I visited a school in US, I realized even students are ready to help/give what they can/have just to support others. So no one cannot do something to bring changes to this world. I’m happy too, that one of my students here in Tanzania – Glory Abraham of grade 6, has that in her mind. Last week she tweeted to me “Mama Lucy, do you know I can change the world?” I was SO happy to read that. I’m so proud of her. Let’s make sure the seed of “changing the world” grows even within the kids.

What a great experience!

Mama Lucy

You can read more of her thoughts about her trip on her Tumblr blog. My friend and beautiful soul Jen Lemen raised the funds for Mama Lucy’s airfare to Europe & the US; her other travel expenses were paid independently, without Epic Change funds, by her hosts.

Posted: February 15th, 2010 under The Foundry.
Comments: 2

For the last two weeks I’ve been at what I’ll jokingly refer to as “fat camp.” Though it’s probably not funny, humor is a mechanism we chubby girls have for self-protection. We want to laugh before somebody else does. Besides, it’s better to laugh than cry.

When I started Epic Change just a couple years ago I was about 100 pounds lighter than I am now. Of course, I won’t exactly get on the scale, or even let the fitness staff tell me what they saw when they weighed me, my back turned to hide from the damage – so who knows for sure what the numbers are? But they’re probably irrelevant, really.

As I was moving, walking through the snow, breathing ice-cold air, stretching too-tight muscles, dancing, feeling my body’s gravity on the earth as I lay flat to rest, it struck me. Somehow I’d forgotten my body was even there.

It probably sounds strange, but somewhere along the line I divorced my mind and soul from its shell. I decided my physical body was irrelevant, a sack for what really mattered – the ideas, love, passion and intelligence within. And, as I did, my physical body has grown larger and larger as if to visibly remind me of it’s existence, which I have faithfully ignored. Because I’m a smart girl. It’s my brain that matters. And the love in my heart. It’s what’s inside that counts.

But, as I laid in meditation for the first time in years, I remembered what a gift it is to be incarnate. To be able to hold babies, hug physical friends, really taste good food – to dance and sing, to smell wood fires burning and feel snow on my skin. To have this human experience. To be in this body.

I’ve also been reading a dense little manifesto called You Are Not A Gadget and I wonder the degree to which my physical self, my humanity, has been sacrificed to my online presence. And the degree to which we as nonprofits sacrifice the humanity of the communities we serve through our use of technology.

How do we retain our humanity while spending ever more time in an increasingly digital world?

PS: Thanks @NurtureGirl for the nudge. More blog posts to come ;)

Posted: February 11th, 2010 under The Foundry.
Comments: 3