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Did December sneak up on you, too? We couldn’t be more excited that it has– it’s a time for hot cocoa, good company, holiday parties and (best of all) giving selflessly. The mood shifts. We’re suddenly connecting with the people we pass on the street, exchanging a smile or a gentle “hello.” I remember holiday shopping as a child, looking to my Mom for a dollar or two to drop in the Salvation Army bucket. Even today, hearing those bells ring, raises a certain sense of comfort in my heart. It’s no wonder, then, that 67% of us get excited for this time of year, and 77% of us are choosing to contribute to nonprofits. Personally, I feel fortunate to be able to combine the two. Will you?
12 Days of Giving starts today! It’s a daily dose of philanthropy for the holidays: 12 different Jolkona teams have dedicated themselves to sharing the love and raising awareness on a certain campaign that speaks to them. We give each team their spotlight for a day, and offer you a chance to make a difference by donating. It’s like our humanitarian holiday wish list and an amazing opportunity to transform someone’s life– someone you may pass by on the street some day.

We all have a dream, a message, or a truth to share with the world. I wish to inspire you to challenge the statistics of holiday spending: $44 million dollars are spent during the holiday season in America– PER HOUR. What percentage of that would you like to see spent bringing a smile to someone or positively impacting a community without the comfortable privileges we enjoy? There are 12 days, 12 campaigns, 12 teams who are sharing their stories with Jolkona. Our goals can be met with your help and support. Get to know each team and the projects that they are passionate about. If one resonates with you, donate! If it doesn’t, share it with someone who may. Drop by drop, your generous contribution– amount is up to you– will create the ripple effect for sustainable, revolutionary change.

Our first team is unwrapping a very special project. Help orphaned or vulnerable Bolivian children by providing them with psychologists and support their psychological growth. Their goal? 72 months of care for these kids. Check out their video below, and get more information about the project here:

Join us.

Stay connected on Facebook, follow our tweets (#12daysgive), or check the blog to unwrap the 12 gifts we are sharing with you over the next 12 days.
The impact you can make is limitless. Here are four ways you can personally generate change and inspire others:

Start a campaign
Donate to one of the 12 Days of Giving campaigns
Give a Jolkona gift card
Your business and Jolkona

Why global development?

Everyone’s heard of “global development,” sure. A thousand times no less. We all kind of get it. And we all kind of don’t. It’s the type of phrase that, when mentioned in the media or conversation, draws us largely to nod our heads knowingly as we acknowledge its familiarity and “importance.” Yet at the same time, somewhere in our subconscious, it’s shrouded in uncertainty. Most of us will perhaps envisage an ambiguous umbrella term for a collection of macrocosmic goings on in a place which isn’t our country, and that certainly has little – if nothing – to do with our local habitats.

Of course, I’m going to tell you we’re wrong, because unbeknown to a multitudinous amount of people in the Pacific North West (I used to be one of them) is this startling statistic: one out of every three jobs in the state of Washington is, in some way or another, related to foreign trade and the evolution of international communities. In fact, Washington impacts international trade more than any other state in the country. If you like number crunching: annually, Washington exports over $53 billion worth of goods and services, reaching every country in the world. Suddenly global doesn’t sound so global after all. Indeed, global is local. The macrocosm becomes the microcosm.

Get global. Get involved

11.1.11 is Global Action Day. Over 300 nonprofits are involved. Jolkona is proud to be one of those nonprofits, and Global Washington is pulling the whole thing together. (Read Nadia Eleza Khawaja’s recent post for more background details.) The ways you can get involved are so numerous you wouldn’t believe it. Just a handful of examples are:

• Signing a petition for the Education For All Act, which aims to provide assistance for developing countries to promote and establish quality basic education
• Writing a letter to U.S. Senator Pat Murray demanding that the foreign aid budget not be cut, which is already a meager sub 1% of their total budget
• Choosing to buy consciously, pledging to learn about fair trade, or supporting sustainable businesses
• Donating to a plethora of causes that support global development

At Jolkona there is not one single project which isn’t in some way connected to global development, and here are but a few:

• Empower underrepresented youth in Seattle
• Support computer literacy in rural Guatemala
• Train women in bio-Intensive farming in Kenya
• You can even sponsor a Jolkona volunteer meeting at Jolkona HQ

For more information about other ways of getting involved, go to the Global Action Day act page: http://www.globalwaday.org/act/#.

Global is local

If one thing needs to be reiterated, it’s this: giving time, money, energy to global development does not mean contributing to something far away and unassociated; it means investing in a fabric that, although perhaps intangible in the immediate, is tightly woven into our very own communities, whether the cause is on our doorstep or 5,000 miles away. Global development is local development.

Note: Statistics taken from Global Washington: http://globalwa.org/