Somehow, the lyrics to the old Peaches and Herb classic ‘Reunited’ are on repeat in my head as I finish clean-up from my goodbye party here in Seattle. I’ve been home for about two months from my latest bout of career adventures in Toronto, Canada and although it’s been nice to unwind and reunite with family and old friends, I’ve found myself eagerly anticipating a whole different kind of reunion.

On July 30th, 2010 I will reunite with India – my country of birth but also a country that has become foreign to me after having gone over a decade without a visit. The anticipation of such a reunion fills me with many overwhelming emotions – excitement, fear, joy, nervousness, and at the best of times, an insatiable need to dance crazily to my favorite Bollywood hits. My mind is abuzz with incessant questions – Will I be accepted? Will I feel Indian? Will I be able to handle living there? But somehow in the background hums a current of calm knowingness that this is the homecoming I’ve been yearning for.

What adds to this sense of calm is my observations of friends and other second generation Indians who, despite having been raised abroad, have slipped comfortably and successfully into study and work positions in India. Their tales consistently include exciting adventures, travels, and, above all, a recognition of parts of themselves within the culture there. Confidence boosted, I too, set forth on a journey of self-discovery.  Read the rest of this entry »

Last month, Seattle 2.0 announced the finalists for the second-annual Seattle 2.0 Awards, the premier tech awards that honor and celebrate “the best of the best” from the tech startup scene in Seattle. One of the categories this year is Best Nonprofit Startup, set out to recognize the startup has done the most to apply technology to solve social problems—and Jolkona Foundation has been nominated!

We are humbled to be a finalist for this award and honored to be nominated along with other amazing nonprofits. Finalists were chosen by a committee and you get to vote on the winners.

We’d appreciate your support by voting for Jolkona as “Best Nonprofit Startup” in the Seattle 2.0 Awards. It only takes a few minutes to cast your vote here on Seattle 2.0’s site.

We would like to thank the selection committee and everyone behind Seattle 2.0 for the nomination! And we’d like to thank you for your support as we continue to inspire and empower a new generation of giving.

Winners are announced at the Seattle 2.0 Awards ceremony on Wednesday, May 19th. The awards ceremony sounds like a fun night. In addition to announcing the winners, they’re hosting a Poker Tournament and a Startup Showcase. Some of us from Jolkona will be in attendance, will you?

Here at the Jolkona Foundation, we empower, we educate, and we offer access to much needed public health services by connecting you with many partner organizations. More importantly, we believe in the impact we can make, especially by supporting development work targeted towards improving the world. Through your support, we are having a real global impact and are working to ensure that the changes we make today have a positive and lasting impact on the future.

March is National Women’s History Month and a celebration of women who struggled to unlock doors so that women today can open the doors and walk through them. The Women’s History Project organizes this month and declares that:

Now, more than ever, the work of this movement needs to continue and expand. Each new generation needs to draw information and inspiration from the last.

As part of our global focus, we’re spending the month of March appreciating the past and looking to the future. We’re highlighting our women-focused projects that are creating lasting change around the world. We’re also honoring the obstacles women have overcome in the past and how those women inspire us to accomplish even greater goals today.

It’s going to be an incredible month, and we hope you’re as excited about this celebration as we are!

What to make a lasting global impact you can see?

Donate to support the work of our women-focused projects today!

How else can you get involved?

• Learn about the National Women’s History Project
• Check out stories and images of women throughout history at the Library of Congress
• And even more articles, videos, pictures and facts at History.com

And we want to hear from YOU! Share your story: How are you celebrating Women’s History Month?

Dear Jolkona Foundation Supporters,

Jolkona Foundation (www.jolkona.org) is a startup nonprofit organization based in Seattle that lets people choose how to impact the world through small donations with tangible proofs of impact.

When we launched Jolkona Foundation to the public in June 2009, we were very excited at the potential of Jolkona Foundation to make giving more fun, transparent and engaging for all donors. Since then, we have seen a tremendous response to our service. Over 350 donations have been made through Jolkona Foundation thus far. We now have over 50 projects in more than 30 countries and continue to add new projects on a weekly basis. We have received a lot media coverage as well, including a front page article in Seattle Times. Most importantly, together we have made very tangible impacts around the world:

• Supplied more than 250 books to schools in Tibet
• Educated over 25 girls in Afghanistan
• Provided more than 15 artificial limbs in Bangladesh
• Supplied over 25 desks to schools in Zambia
• Trained over 15 children in computers in Guatemala
• Planted over 4,000 trees worldwide
• And much much more…

I would like to start this holiday season by thanking you – our biggest supporters. Your support has played a crucial role in making Jolkona successful in our first 5 months. We will continue to look to you to help reach out to more philanthropists and change the lives of more people on the ground. This holiday season I have 4 specific asks of you:

1.    Make at least one more donation to the Jolkona Foundation. Whether it is $5 to buy a malaria net in India, $30 to train a low income individual in USA, or $40 to buy a solar stove in Tibet, please make at least more 1 donation through Jolkona Foundation this holiday season. Check out our projects at http://www.jolkona.org/projects/?view=list and give.

2.    Vote for Jolkona Foundation in the Facebook Chase Giving Challenge and help us win $25,000 and a chance to win $1,000,000. It just takes one click to vote for Jolkona Foundation. Just follow this link - http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/339790, login into Facebook, and vote today. Once you have voted, please get at least 10 of your Facebook friends to also vote for us. We will be planting a tree for every vote we get in this challenge.

3.    Please tell at least 5 people about Jolkona Foundation and give them the opportunity to feel empowered by the difference they can make by giving to a project that inspires them. The more people we can get to give, the more impact we can have around the world.

4.    Stay tuned for our holiday giving features. Give the gift of making a difference to your friends, family, or co-workers.  Holiday gift cards will be available on our website shortly and will make great holiday gifts, stock stuffers, etc.    

We started Jolkona Foundation with a vision to galvanize a new generation of philanthropists – young people who want to see the difference their small donations can make. This message has resonated very well and as a result, our team has grown from just Nadia and I to a team of 20 capable, passionate, young people. We have been able to accomplish a lot because of this team and we are looking to accomplish a lot more in 2010. However, we need your help in helping us reach more people and get them to use Jolkona Foundation. I look forward to your continued support this holiday season and in 2010. If you have any questions/comments, please feel free to contact me any time.

Happy Holidays from Jolkona Foundation!

All the Best,

Adnan

I’m heading out for Peru tomorrow to check out Cusco and Machu Picchu, completely sans guilt about missing a week of class.  Being an anthropology major allows me to justify just about any sort of travel as “experiential learning,” especially in this case since I have a test on Incan culture and religion the day after I get back, so what better way to prepare than by seeing the Sacred Valley in person? Right? Right. Anyway, I’m feeling economical today, and so before my somewhat feisty Internet goes out again I want to start a conversation about the economic situation here, especially as related to poverty and inequality. The following information come from the 2008 United Nations Human Development Report website, so pop on over and brush up on your global statistics if you are so inclined.

• Using the UN’s Human Development Index (a combined measure of education, life expectancy, and income), Chile ranks 40th out of 179 countries, just between Poland and Slovakia
• There is a high degree of income inequality: using the UN Gini coefficient as a measure, Chile ranks 40^th in the world (as in, 39 countries have less income inequality than Chile).
  • A Gini coefficient of 0 represents absolute income equality, while 100 represents absolute inequality. Chile’s is 54.9.
• The GDP per capita is $12,997 (56th in the world), compared to $41,890 in the U.S (2nd in the world).
• According to a study on socioeconomics conducted by the Chilean government in 2006, 13.7% of the population was living in poverty as compared with 38.6% in 1990 and 45.1% in 1987 during Pinochet’s military regime.
• The minimum wage is $144.000 pesos per month (about $260 US dollars)

The Concertación government, a center-left coalition that has been in power since 1990, has made significant social and economic progress since the end of Pinochet’s regime, and Chile is one of the most economically and politically stable countries in Latin America. However, it still faces significant problems with poverty and inequality. One article I read for my Chilean Politics and Economics class (“Chilean Economic Policy under the Concertación: The Triumph of the Market?” by Lois Hecht Oppenheim if you want a bit of policy analysis) holds that the “Chilean miracle” that resulted from a decade and a half of militant neoliberalism under Pinochet, followed by only minor adjustments has left a market-and-export based economic model that has overlooked other areas of social improvement like education and access to it, gender equality, and classism. Furthermore, Chile’s economy is almost entirely based on primary products: fruit, wine, copper, and nitrates. Unless Chile can eventually diversify it’s economy to include services, it is unlikely to see much more economic growth.

Along with this, chilenos I’ve talked to have mentioned a fairly rigid system of social classes. The other day, my host mom was describing the difficulty of moving up from lower middle class as a direct product of a lack of educational access. College tuition is prohibitively expensive for many students, even those with great academic potential. Scholarships exist, but are limited. Families that can afford it send their children to private schools, though public schools and state-subsidized private schools (similar to charter schools in the U.S) are more common, and suffer from underfunding and overcrowding. Classism is a much bigger problem in Chile than racism or ethnic discrimination, since 90% of the population shares Mestizo (mixed European and indigenous) heritage. Friends that volunteer at Cerro Navia Joven, a nonprofit community organization that serves the a poor area in the western sector of Santiago, reported that many of the people at the center need to lie about where they live in order to get hired anywhere. To admit to being from a bad neighborhood would doom them to unemployment.

Much, much more on these topics to follow. I just wanted to put a few themes up for now, so stay tuned!