GivingTuesday is a movement that unleashes the power of radical generosity around the world. Now in its 10th anniversary year, GivingTuesday has grown into a year-round global generosity movement with a distributed network of entrepreneurial leaders who spearhead national movements in more than 85 countries and hundreds of community leaders who create initiatives to increase generosity at a local level.
In this discussion post, we will be amplifying ventures and organizations led by AGLN Fellows doing social good. We hope that you can continue to support them even beyond the holidays.
While official submissions for this year are closed, feel free to share your work - or work of your fellow Fellows - in this form for consideration to be featured in a special edition outreach in the future. Share details and photos of the work on the ground, so that we can make sure fellow Fellows know how to support you. More on how to participate in the GivingTuesday movement can be found on their website. Email Jael Lewis at jael.lewis@aspeninstitute.org with any questions on submissions.
Climate Action
Bring an End to Plastic Pollution in Central America withMarea Verde
Shared by:Mirei Heras, Central America Leadership Initiative Fellow, Co-founder and President, Marea Verde Panama
Stop plastic pollution in our ocean by bringing attention and action to river plastics, using technology, innovation, communication and community engagement. It is estimated that since 1950 humans have generated 8,700 Mt of plastic waste - equivalent to 25,000 Empire State buildings! At this rate by 2050 there will be more plastics than fish in the ocean.
Most of this garbage reaches our oceans via rivers. Marea Verde implemented the first solar and hydraulic powered Trashwheel in Latin America, Wanda Diaz, recuperating over 100 tons of recyclable plastics, artificial intelligence identifies and quantifies what we collect, and the data generated feeds our communication and community engagement work in the Juan Diaz River watershed in Panama.
The education and awareness program has impacted over 5000 people and 35 schools. By March 2023 we expect to inaugurate our Education and Awareness Center to help leverage the work with schools, communities, authorities and the general public. Our ambition is to scale this experience and have a river plastic collection system in every polluted river in Panama, partnering with the private sector, fostering effective recycling and waste management public policies, and helping communities and individuals adopt sustainable habits.
Support Us and Take Action:
Pleasedonate to our Education and Awareness Center, be a responsible consumer, reuse and recycle.
Mobilize Mothers and Families for a Livable Climate withMothers Out Front
Shared by: Kelsey Wirth, Henry Crown Fellow, Co-Founder and Chair, Mothers Out Front
Mothers Out Front empowers mothers to push for transformational change on climate and energy policy in the US. The organization is building a multi-racial, cross-class movement of 32,000+ mothers, grandmothers, and other caregivers in local teams across multiple states who bring their passion for children’s well-being to advance concrete solutions for all.
With the recent Supreme Court ruling gutting the power of the federal government to take action on climate, this kind of work couldn’t be more important -- it will be up to cities and towns to lead the way in preserving a planet on which our children can thrive. With your support, Mothers Out Front can continue to amplify mothers’ voices in advocating for a rapid shift from dirty to clean energy and ensure a safe and healthy future for all children.
Shared by: Juan Marco Alvarez, Central America Leadership Initiative Fellow, Director de Comercialización y Sostenibilidad, Enersys Solar
Newly formed and legalized in El Salvador, but with a focus in northern Central America, IAC aims to mitigate and adapt to climate change in order to strengthen resilience and minimize vulnerability of Central American countries. The organization's main focus is in water resource management, where the IAC contributes to the improvement of regional governance for water security while also seeking to execute projects that contribute to reversing existing degradation such as targeted reforestation, improvements in source protection, aquifer re-infiltration projects, and management of water funds.
The second priority is in the management and conservation of natural areas and biodiversity. This is approached through nature-based solutions for climate change that contribute to mitigation and adaptation, since any intervention that reduces climate impacts also improves and increases carbon sequestration including restoration of forests and conservation of ecosystems and landscapes. IAC is now involved with two pilot projects focused on reducing the carbon and water footprint in coffee, cocoa, and tomato value chains in a sample of producers located in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua.
Support Us and Take Action:
IAC is focusing on an initial 3-year pilot project that will provide water security to a specific sector of the San Salvador metropolitan area, which will include specific interventions in the upper slopes of the San Salvador volcano. This initial pilot phase aims to raise $500,000, which will be matched 100% with USAID El Salvador funding, for a total project amount of $1,000,000. The Water Fund is interested in private and international donors interested in climate change adaptation and water security for vulnerable populations.Follow IAC on social media to support and learn more.
Health and Nutrition
Help End Infant and Adolescent Mortality by Fighting Malnutrition withEdesia, Inc.
Shared by: Navyn Salem, Henry Crown Fellow, Founder & CEO, Edesia Inc.
Climate change and conflict are leaving millions of children at risk of malnutrition. We have the solution. Plumpy’Nut is a fortified peanut butter that can save the life of a severely malnourished child in 8 weeks. UNICEF and WFP said they need every packet we can make, so Edesia is urgently scaling up production. The Edesia team created a “registry” listing all the equipment they need to expand the factory in Rhode Island.
Support Us and Take Action:
This Giving Tuesday, please consider helping Edesia purchase the equipment needed to reach children from Somalia to Haiti to Afghanistan. Their registry can be found here and donations can be made here: www.edesianutrition.org/donate. There are so many complex problems in the world that we don’t know how to solve. Malnutrition isn’t one of them.
Bring an End to Human Trafficking Through Health Outcomes withHEAL Trafficking
Shared by: Hanni Stoklosa, Health Innovators Fellow, CEO, HEAL Trafficking/Emergency Physician Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School
Health care is the most powerful force to end trafficking. HEAL Trafficking leads innovative health solutions to eradicate human trafficking in our communities worldwide. The organization connects a community of 4,000 health professionals in 35 countries to anti-trafficking resources, with its trainings and tools increasing the skills of health professionals and health systems to respond to trafficking. Ultimately, HEAL's work leads to freedom for victims of trafficking.
Support Us and Take Action:
1) Donate so we can continue our world-healing work for trafficking survivors:https://healtrafficking.org/donate/. Even $10 will make a difference for trafficking survivors!
2) Connect us withSPONSORS for the 2nd edition of HEAL's health systems anti-trafficking protocol toolkit (the first edition is being used in 50 countries around the world!) or our international Train the Trainers!
Fighting Inequity
Build Collective Power, Support Domestic Workers, and Protect Frontline Activism withLibra Foundation
Shared by: Crystal Hayling, Henry Crown Fellow, Executive Director, Libra Foundation
Essie Justice Group - Grantee of the Libre Foundation
TheEssie Justice Group harnesses the power and passion of the 1-in-4 women who have an incarcerated loved one, with the goal of ending mass incarceration's harm to women and communities. Essie's award-winning Healing to Advocacy Model brings women together to heal, build collective power, and drive social change. They are building a membership of fierce advocates for racial and gender justice. Contributions can be madeonline here.
National Domestic Workers Alliance - Grantee of the Libre Foundation
TheNational Domestic Workers Alliance organizes and amplifies public policy solutions for the more than 2 million nannies, housekeepers, and home care workers who make substandard wages and don't have sick leave or health care. Joined by people who employ domestic workers, NDWA is building a powerful voice for those insisting on the dignity and value of those who provide care and comfort required for a functioning economy. Contributions can be madeonline here.
Democracy Frontlines Fund - Project of the Libra Foundation
TheDemocracy Frontlines Fund was founded immediately after the murder of George Floyd with a $3 million/3 year commitment alongside foundation CEOs to learn about anti-Black racism in America and support foundational grants to Black-led organizations fighting voter suppression, injustice, and insufficient resources for community health and safety. The Fund is now a $45 million pooled fund with15 members. Minimum contributions are $3 million over 3 years. Contact Crystal Hayling directly at crystal@taorising.com to discuss membership.
Support Gender Equity by Aiding Family Child Care Providers withAll Our Kin
Shared by: Jessica Sager, Pahara-Aspen Education Fellowship Fellow, CEO and Founder, All Our Kin
All Our Kin is a national nonprofit organization that trains, supports, and sustains family child care providers. Its mission to transform the nation’s child care system results in a triple win: child care providers succeed as business owners; working parents find stable, high-quality care for their children; and children gain an educational foundation that lays the groundwork for achievement.
All Our Kin serves nearly 1,100 family child care providers, who in turn educate and care for over 6,000 children from chronically under-resourced communities in Connecticut and New York City. In addition to its direct service program, All Our Kin trains and advises partner organizations across the country to strengthen their engagement and practice with family child care providers.
Support Us and Take Action:
We would like people to consider making adonation to All Our Kin, and like, comment, and/or share oursocial media posts.
Shared by: Jocelyn Mangan, Henry Crown Fellow, CEO and Founder, Him for Her
Him For Her transforms lives by unlocking the social and economic benefits of diverse boardrooms. The organization engages business luminaries to connect the world’s most talented “Hers” to board service, drawing from its ever-growing referral-only talent network of 5500+ board-ready women, a third of whom are women of color. Together with guest hosts, Him For Her also convenes roundtable discussions that extend networks for CEOs and current and aspiring board members. The organization is proud to partner with 85+ leading private equity and venture capital firms and to support women executives in some of the world’s largest companies through its corporate on-boarding program.
A 501c3 corporation, Him For Her operates through the generosity of its founding partners IVP, L Catterton, Mayfield, Silver Lake Partners, Softbank, Starboard Value and Tiger Global Impact Ventures, and supporters like Brad Feld & Amy Batchelor, Reid Hoffman, Jeff Weiner, Nasdaq and many others.
Support Us and Take Action:
With your support, we will solve gender diversity on for-profit boards within the next ten years. Learn More.
Create More Equitable Workplaces, Schools, and Communities Across the United States with Beloved Community
Beloved Community is a Black-owned, women-led and pro-queer nonprofit racial and economic equity consulting firm that supports organizations to develop realistic, data-driven, tangible and measurable plans to create more equitable workplaces, schools, and communities nationwide. Offering hands-on and online training, capacity building cohorts, online data tools and assessments, and more – all of our services at Beloved are designed to help our clients implement structural change and center equity more intentionally into every facet of how they work.
These actions and tools empower our nation’s organizations, industries and sectors in working together to create sustainable economic growth and equity for communities in all areas of their life.
Support Us and Take Action:
Making a one-time donation at www.wearebeloved.org/donate! We're also accepting referrals as a form of social currency. Know someone we should connect with? Please send them our way by contacting me at rhonda@wearebeloved.org.
Shared by: Jaime R. Zablah Siri, Central America Leadership Initiative Fellow, CEO, La Factoria Ciudadana El Salvador and Guatemala
La Factoria Ciudadana helps people previously involved in violence, many of whom were ex gang members who were recently imprisoned or deported, by providing psychological and psychiatric support, tattoo removal, basic education, and job seeking and training services. These trainings help program graduates open businesses as barbers, beauticians, seamstresses, and tailors in El Salvador and Guatemala, with Honduras soon to come. The organization engages with 800+ people monthly, 35% of whom are women and 7% of whom have disabilities.
Support Us and Take Action by:
We ask that you spread the program’s reach through word of mouth, get involved by spending some time in El Salvador, put together a fundraising event in your hometown, and/or support the program with a scholarship of $2,500 (a year of all services, training, and opening of a business that will support a family) or with in-kind donations.
Reach out to Jaime R. Zablah Siri for more information at jaimezablahs@gmail.com.
Shared by: Portia Yarborough, Henry Crown Fellow, Senior Manager, DuPont
Hope Academy Fund is a US 501 (c) (3) non-profit whose vision is to inspire children to become servant leaders and changemakers in order to create thriving communities, institutions and governments, and a better future for all of us. We are investing in children during their formative years (ages 9-16) in partnership with local schools, churches, parents, and communities.
We build and support programs designed to bolster academic performance, build character, promote critical thinking, encourage intellectual curiosity, cultivate entrepreneurship and servant leadership, and instill a sense of global responsibility. We do this through after-school programs, camps, and community service and environmental stewardship activities.
Shared by: Anita Antenucci, Henry Crown Fellow, Senior Managing Director, Houlihan Lokey, Chair of the Board, The Shakespeare Theatre Company
The Shakespeare Theatre Company is a non-profit producer of classical theater in the Nation’s Capitol. STC’s series of plays present compelling and approachable takes on the works of Shakespeare and other renown playwrights across the ages who tell vital stories about enduring human values and dilemmas.
In expanding its footprint, STC is funding its goal to bring every DC Public School and charter school student to a professional play on our stage before graduation. STC’s Education Artists support public school teachers in introducing these works to kids of all ages in the classroom, summer camps, and other spaces. As cuts to arts education, lower public funding, and smaller subscriber bases for performing arts challenge us, STC is committed to presenting world class live productions of the classics for today's audiences and generations to come.
Support Child Literacy and Education in Central America with Project Alianza
Shared by: Kristin Van Busum, Central America Leadership Initiative Fellow, Founder and Executive Director, Project Alianza
Project Alianza hires and trains local women in Central America as educators to help children learn and stay in school. Working alongside public school teachers and after school, these community educators teach children how to read using the proven, groundbreaking method known as Teach-at-the-Right-Level. To date, 70% of third and fourth graders receiving instruction from Project Alianza have achieved basic literacy skills, compared to the regional average of 50%. Project Alianza also promotes learning at home by partnering with local radio stations to broadcast pre-recorded literacy lessons. These guide children and their caregivers on a series of hands-on literacy exercises completed in workbooks, which are collected to assess learning.
This innovative program, piloted in 2020, has reached more than 39,000 listeners as of late 2022. To keep children from dropping out of schools, Project Alianza grants their families cash assistance to help cover education costs such as supplies and transportation. These “direct cash transfers” also allow families to use more of their income for basic needs such as food and housing. Over 90% of students receiving cash assistance from Project Alianza are on track to graduate from secondary school, compared to the regional average of 65%.
Support Us and Take Action:
Make a donation at https://www.projectalianza.org/donate
Shared by: Naomi Adjepong, Africa Leadership Initiative - West Africa Fellow, School Director, Adinkrahene Leadership Program (Alpha Beta Education Centres)
The mission of Alpha Beta School, Accra, Ghana is to provide an enriched teaching and learning environment which promotes knowledge, Christian values, and service to others. The school’s vision is to raise leaders of tomorrow who will be part of the solution to Africa’s developmental challenges.
Over the last 35 years, Alpha Beta has raised thousands of leaders through its innovative approaches to holistic education. Over the last 8 years, Alpha Beta has been running the entrepreneurial Adinkrahene Leadership Program (ALP), which provides purposeful opportunities for high school students to gain the knowledge, values, skills, and experience they need to thrive in the 21st century. Students have demonstrated improved academic performance as a result of the non-academic growth opportunities they receive such as internships, community service projects, mentoring, personal development workshops, and student entrepreneurship activities. As a result, the school has won many academic awards from the British Council and many local and international entrepreneurship competitions, with graduates attending and excelling at top universities globally and going on to have successful careers globally or becoming successful, socially conscious entrepreneurs.
Support Us and Take Action:
Support our school through partnerships such as educational exchanges, education programs for students/faculty, educational resources, virtual/physical internships, student community service projects, and guest speaker opportunities.
We also welcome your expertise in areas such as STEM program design, entrepreneurial leadership curriculum content, infrastructure design, fundraising, staff training, and business strategy.
Learn more:
Cultivate Youth Leaders in Central America with SERES
Shared by: Corrina Grace, Central America Leadership Initiative Fellow, Principal Consultant and Co-Founder, SERES
SERES is an innovative, award-winning nonprofit that works at the intersection of poverty, climate change, and marginalization, catalyzing a generation of young leaders who are working collaboratively towards a more just and resilient future in Guatemala and El Salvador. Focusing on disadvantaged and marginalized frontline communities where SERES has built deep ties, SERES has trained more than 7,000 leaders through its vision of transformative leadership training, supporting youth-led community projects, and cultivating a network of youth alumni working across Guatemala and El Salvador.
Together, they have created a movement of young leaders that are transforming the future of their communities, resulting in 300 community action projects that have impacted more than 45,000 people in 365 communities. SERES has received two prestigious international awards in recognition of the transformative impact that it has had on young peoples’ lives and livelihoods: the UNESCO-Japan Prize for Education for Sustainable Development, and the 2021 educational prize for outstanding Innovation in Education in Latin America.
Support Us and Take Action:
We would like to ask people to consider making a donation to SERES to support our Fellowship fund. This fund will be used to inspire, empower and connect regional cohorts of changemakers, helping to ensure that their voices and ideas are included in decision making and accelerating positive and lasting change in their communities and throughout the region: https://www.seres.org/donate
Learner-Centered Collaborative envisions education ecosystems that empower all learners to know who they are, thrive in community, and actively engage in the world as their best selves. Through its work, LCC partners with over 150,000 educators to define whole-learner outcomes, design meaningful learning experiences, and create the enabling conditions for their unique journey to inclusive and equitable learner-centered education. Our team has decades of expertise in education from a variety of sectors including technology, policy, administration, and teaching.
From these diverse experiences emerged a shared understanding: to truly develop and grow unique individuals we cannot teach in a standardized way. We are thus guided by the persistent truth that a learner-centered approach is the foundation for a successful, thriving learning community. Learner-Centered Collaborative builds and expands upon the work our team has been doing for years with partner schools across the country. Recognizing the complexity of change, driven by what’s best for learners, and informed by research and practice, we work closely with schools, districts, and states to find their new way forward.
Support Us and Take Action:
Take a look at our 2021-22 Impact Report. (learnercentered.org/impact-report-2021-22). Join the movement of educators, leaders, change-makers, parents, and learners already realizing what’s possible when we put learners at the center. Please consider donating at learnercentered.org/donate
Improve Rural Education Equality using Technology with Barrilete
Shared by: Urania (Ura) Callejas Vidaurre, Central America Leadership Initiative Fellow, Partner, Boombit Agency and Founder and CEO, Barrilete
Through technology, knowledge access, and human-centered design, Barrilete aims to improve Central America's education quality and innovate to create an inclusive world that solves social challenges. Since its founding three years ago, Barrilete has provided research, communication, innovation, and technology services in education including content and programs to over 9,000 rural children on coffee farms in Central American countries, thanks to an alliance with Sesame Street and Project Alianza. Through different digital platforms, thousands of urban children are being reached.
Barrilete is working on future projects to help migrant children in transit to North America, and indigenous Ngäbe-Buglé children in Costa Rica and Panama. As part of its work with organizations, Barrilete has also trained literacy teachers in Central America and the Caribbean and visualized HIV data for 11 Latin American countries. Barrilete is working on an open-source digital educational platform that works without the internet to reinforce classroom topics, while also addressing issues like gender equality and violence.
Support Us and Take Action:
Demonstrate empathy for children at risk in Central America.
Promote Barrilete's cause and share information with your contacts: https://www.barrileteapp.com/
Help a child at risk by donating to our programs: https://www.barrileteapp.com/Consultanci
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