Stories & Inspiration
Read below to see all the amazing ways the Mozilla community shared, gave, engaged, created, and collaborated during the week of September 14-21, 2009, by using the Internet to make a difference in people's lives.
People from all over came together to make a difference in their local community, and helped fellow public benefit organizations gain from the open Web. Thank you for taking part in Mozilla Service Week. Thank you for joining the cause - you made a difference.
Latin American Literacy Project
The Abriendo Mentes (Opening Minds) project is a community-based literacy project with the mission to enhance literacy by providing experiential learning programs,creative arts instruction, and access to educational resources to rural Latin American communities. Since we are currently in the start up phase, our biggest challenge is to develop the online presence, marketing, and fund raising skills to ensure this program will expand and be sustainable. We specifically need assistance from volunteers with technical skills and fresh ideas to work with website and logo design, and marketing.
Our pilot project is located in Playa Potrero, which is a small village of a few hundred people on the Pacific coast in the Guanacaste province of Costa Rica. The community school can only provide limited classes through the elementary level, thus steady learning and continuing education is a great challenge for this community and other rural Latin American villages. We provide afternoon English instruction incorporated with creative art activities and critical thinking skills to expand upon concepts taught in school. To further supplement our program, we take experiential learning field trips for real life application of the English language. We see our program as more than an operation to increase the English skills of rural communities, but rather as a way to increase self esteem, stimulate developing minds, and increase the overall literacy skills of the world.
Mifos, an opportunity to make a difference
My name is Johan Hilding, I live in Sweden where I study Computer Science at Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan.
Mifos is an open source web-based management information system (MIS) that provides a great operational efficiency and robust real-time business intelligence enabling Microfinance institutions to broaden the scale and impact of financial services to the poor.
I found out about Mifos through the Google Summer of Code, where I applied to help with writing acceptance tests.
I got accepted, so I've spent this summer adding acceptance tests for the Mifos application.
The thing that I like the most about working with Mifos is that the community is alive and very helpful. It's also very well documented and well structured.
If you are interested of helping out, please read more at the Related Link.
Related Link
Helping Orphans in Sudan
Southern Sudan suffered 21 years of civil war. Southern Sudan was never developed during the colonial period. The rudimentary infrastructure was destroyed during the war.
We are looking for someone with skills in social media and online marketing to help raise money for, and awareness of our mission and activities. This person should be able to volunteer on a regular basis and work well with a team. This volunteer should be a good blogger and writer and have skills with search engine optimization, Twitter, Feedburner, posting news and Facebook. This is a great chance to meet new people and do something worthwhile for a very good cause.
The primary mission of Southern Sudan Humanitarian (SSH) is to partner with the people of Southern Sudan so that they can have clean water, health care, successful agriculture, orphan care, education and family income to achieve the future they desire.
As a non-profit, all team members volunteer time and energy, ensuring that 100% of donations reach the project locations. Volunteers consist of residents of Southern Sudan, Southern Sudan refugees resettled in the USA, and native US residents. We are looking for motivated and qualified people to join our team in the various capacities;
Candidates must be self-directed and motivated.
How to Apply:
For additional information on our work, please visit our website at: www.sudanhelp.org or email: ***@***.***Related Link
Call to Action: Help technology end poverty!
Volunteer with the Mifos Initiative to help microfinance institutions (MFIs) around the world use technology to empower the poor to lift themselves out of poverty. Mifos is an open-source web-based information technology platform to allow MFIs to manage their loan portfolios and track their clients’ progress out of poverty in one centralized place. Leveraging the power of the web, Mifos enables MFIs to rapidly grow and more effectively deliver financial services to the poor.
There are many ways to contribute your time and skills during Mozilla Service Week to advance the Mifos platform and accelerate the growth of microfinance through the web. From helping MFIs save on IT costs while opening new branches, to making Mifos accessible to MFIs of all languages around the globe, you can use the power of open source web-based technology in the fight against global poverty.
For more information and how to contribute - Related Link
Social media advice
Web User magazine is pledging one hour each day during Mozilla Service Week to help the charity Find Your Feet make more effective use of social media.
Find your Feet is hoping to build on its existing presence on social-networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter and its blog to widen its base of support and attract more donations.
Web User plans to apply its experience and knowledge in this field to help the charity, which works with people living in poverty in rural India and Malawi, to fulfill its aims.
Related Link
Open Source has been very good to me
So to pay it back and pay it forward, I and a host of others will be helping out other folks learn how to use, install, configure Drupal and Mozilla Thunderbird at Vancouver's Agentic in Gastown, 611 Alexander, Vancouver, 17Sept 2-5:30p.m.. Love to see other open source projects come out too! Related Link
ABC4All is 4All
A Better Community for All (ABC4All) is a grassroots organization operating without funding for 12 years often with great self-sacrifice as resources are gathered to bring Global Humanitarian Relief to the world.
Here is a description of ABC4All in 75 words:
A Better Community For All (ABC4All) focuses on the betterment of citizenry and communities via a give-back model of conducting business in the world: “Maximizing Charitable Contributions on and off the Internet.”™ Support is offered for charitable causes worldwide. ABC4AllWorldSolutions!™ provide opportunities to reach unimagined “Health Heights™.” A healthier water and application of advanced energy technologies bring the potential for humanitarian relief wherever it is needed throughout the world in emergent/non-emergent situations.
FOCUS: Global Humanitarian Relief
GHR: The Benefit of the Other
www.abc4all.net
ABC4All Basics
www.abc4all.net/abc4allbasics.html
World March for Peace
www.abc4all.net/wpm
Endorsement!
www.worldmarchusa.net/endorsements.php
WORLD JOURNEY 2010-2015
www.abc4all.net/worldjourney
REQUEST: Help is needed to organize info that has been collected over the years, mostly without professional web design.
Thank you! Related Link
The DC Food For All
DC is a hungry city. Half of the children in our nation's capital are at risk of hunger. We suffer from limited access to nutritious food, high rates of obesity and diet-related illnesses like diabetes. It doesn't have to be this way. Indeed, we can find a number of new efforts to increase access to fresh and affordable food in DC's low-income communities – from gleaning operations, to food stamps at farmers' markets, to a nascent urban gardening scene, to innovative web applications like the DC Food Finder. [http://dcfoodfinder.org] A movement is happening, and we’re going to build it a space of its very own. As part of the Healthy and Affordable Food For All Coalition, we're planning to launch a collaborative blog about local food security, called the DC Food For All.
It's an exciting project and your expertise with Wordpress and/or design could make it come alive. CONTACT ME at ***@***.*** to get involved. Related Link
Blog for the Poor
Bread for the City is a non-profit organization that provides comprehensive assistance to DC's poorest residents. At our blog (http://breadforthecity.blogspot.com) we write daily about the problems of poverty and potential solutions to it.
We want to bring our blog (currently on a separate platform) into the infrastructure of our website (www.breadforthecity.org) despite the fact that our platform (Blackbaud Netcommunity) doesn't really 'get' how blogs work. So we're going to build a wordpress site that will mimic our official site. We have a trusty volunteer who will drive this project on the back-end, and are looking for additional muscle to make it a reality on the front-end.
We get things done. (Check our www.SaveOurSafetyNet.com, which we built in two days!) We can put you to good use, and you will be servicing the poor. Related Link
LOCAL BARAKAT OFFICE NEEDS THE HELP OF AN IT SPECIALIST!
Barakat’s mission is to improve the well-being of marginalized groups in South and Central Asia by increasing access to quality education and a healthy environment.
Barakat works towards this mission by supporting local, innovative organizations that are making a real difference in the places they work. We establish a close, long-lasting relationship with each of our partners. These relationships allow our partners to focus their energies on helping more people and making their programs more effective. Barakat strives to make the maximum impact possible with each dollar, so we have high standards for our partnerships.
What makes us different?
We work in places that are difficult to access, and often support changes that challenge the status quo. We educate girls and women in places where girls’ education is discouraged. We support environmental rehabilitation in places where land is seen as something to exploit. We find ways to work health into our schools in places where policies forbid such work. We see challenges and obstacles as a reason to try harder, not a reason to give up.
With out local office located in Central Square, Cambridge, we need the help of an IT specialist. The aid of a specialist will help to boost our overall production in the office. Our office uses Mac/Apple OSX computers.
Please contact Chelsea Stine at ***@***.*** if you are interested in helping us out during Service week, or any other time.
Many thanks!
Related Link