Lake Atitlan

Originally uploaded by rmdlwa.

This photo is taken from the shores of Panajachel looking out over the lake towards Santiago and San Pedro. We have relocated the Casa de Sion orphanage children from Guatemala City to a 3 acre parcel (2 homes) on the shores of this gorgeous lake.

DSC00374

Originally uploaded by rmdlwa.

I recently returned from a 10 day trip to Belize and Guatemala. For the last part of the trip I had Steven Dalley (a friend and professional photographer / cameraman) join us to take pictures and video footage at the various projects we are involved with at Maya Jade. There are basically 4 different projects that we are involved with or looking at being involved with at the current time. The first is a set of schools that have been established in Guatemala in Chimaltenango, Patzicia and Momostenango. They are being run by a local guatemalan, Julio Salazar and his foundation La Fundacion Rosa. I’ve been invovled with projects at their school in Patzicia for several years and we are anxious to support their ongoing efforts. The second project is one we helped start a couple of years ago in guatemala city and now has been transplanted out to Lake Atitlan. It is called Casa de Sion orphanage and now houses approx. 50 orphans from various parts of Guatemala. We are working closely with Casa de Sion to provide fundraising and service opportunities for the groups we will be bringing down from the US. Project 3 is a new one just starting in Escuintla. We are working with the mayor to identify needs in that area and recently took down a shipment of clothing for children in the area including the girl featured in the accompanying photo. Project 4 is in belize and is an effort to help an extended family get involved in the tourism industry that is fast becoming the hope of Belize. I will give more details on each of these projects in the near future. Thanks to all who have supported us to this point!

- RW

Kailash Satyarthi has saved tens of thousands of lives. At the age of 26 he gave up a promising career as an electrical engineer and dedicated his life to helping the millions of children in India who are forced into slavery by powerful and corrupt business- and land-owners. His original idea was daring and dangerous. He decided to mount raids on factories — factories frequently manned by armed guards — where children and often entire families were held captive as bonded workers.

After successfully freeing and rehabilitating thousands of children, he went on to build up a global movement against child labor. Today Kailash heads up the Global March Against Child Labor, a conglomeration of 2000 social-purpose organizations and trade unions in 140 countries.

Yet even as he has become a globally recognized figure, Kailash continues the gritty work of leading raids to free slaves. Kailash believes that he must focus on a range of activities — from the most grassroots to the most visionary — in order to win the fight.

The above quoted from:

http://www.pbs.org/opb/thenewheroes/meet/satyarthi.html

Social entrepreneurs are not content just to give a fish or teach how to fish. They will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry.

- Bill Drayton

We are still in the planning stages of our new project, Maya Jade, but I have to admit I can’t recall being more excited about a project. The basic idea behind the project is to take humanitarian expeditions down to Guatemala (other countries to follow) and allow the volunteers to participate on a wide range of service projects ranging from health and education to gardening and micro-enterprise. We have a million ideas flowing through our heads about how we want to tackle this new project. I am particularily excited about the potential use of the internet and social networking to grow support for our cause. The production of a top class website for Maya Jade is going to be crucial to our success. I envision expedition participants logging onto the website prior to the expedition and sending out customizable greeting cards to their friends and families inviting them to join or sponsor the expedition. Likewise after the expeditions I can envision them uploading their own photos and again sending out greeting cards - this time telling about their experience and once again encouraging them to get involved. I would hope past participants would be excited to promote the foundation via adding their trip photos to flickr, creating myspace and squidoo pages about their trip and even youtube videos. Of course, we would also have past participants have blogs on the website chronicling their trips. The website will also need to be very user friendly for donations and spell out customized monthly sponsorhip opportunities.

As I just read on Ashoka: “All ideas must be user-friendly, understandable, ethical and capable of engaging wide spread support.” I’m thinking that a cms (content management system) will be best for Maya Jade - not sure if wordpress or mod x is the right choice. Anyway, I’m just anxious to get moving with this new project and would love to hear people’s ideas for social entrepreneurship and how to leverage social networking to grow a cause. 

Anyway, today I stumbled across an intriguing list of non profits who are excelling at using the internet to further their causes. I hope to learn from each of these oranizations.

1. I moonlight (day job is internet marketing) as a tour guide to Latin America. I lived in Guatemala and Belize for a time and fell in love with Latin America - I now typically lead 6 to 8 tour groups (ranging in size from 20 to 100) per year. Most of my trips are Mexico, Belize and Guatemala but I also lead cruise ship groups at times and include additional stops in Grand Caymen, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama and Jamaica.

 2. My wife and I have raised our kids (3 with a 4th on the way) bi-lingual (english - spanish).

3. I get interview requests to discuss NBA Basketball on the radio all around the globe - particularily when Draft time approaches.

4. I helped start an orphanage in Guatemala that now houses over 100 children ages newborn to 16. I expect everyone that reads this to get involved and help:)

5. I was recently recruited by the CIA to be a “covert operative” but declined when told I would need to spend my first assignment in either Afghanistan or Iraq.

 Ok, time for me to tag some people:

Ryan McCoy, Dave Bascom, Moiz Khan, Ryan Ewer, Gilbert Lee

 Chris Hall, CTO, IABC

Matt Cutts, Google