Being Fully Present

(c.Sanjay Patel, 2007)

As introduced in Sunday’s post, Tweetsgiving has a two-fold mission: to share gratitude and raise funds for a school in Tanzania. 

I am filled with gratitude that my children recieved  good education and have become happy and successful adults.

Gideon wants the same thing.  He is a 9 year old student at Shepherds Junior in Arusha, Tanzania.  Learn a little bit about him below (courtesy of Epic Change).

When we aked Gideon to draw a picture of what makes him happy, he drew a picture of himself playing in the rain. He dreams of one day becoming an astronaut who reaches new planets.

When we interviewed Gideon’s father, a welder who’s volunteering his skills to help build the new school and is also a minister, Mr. Gidori wondered aloud how they could have the same God as the people he once visited in Australia, why they would have so much while his people have so little.

He went on to say, “if you tell a man he is weak, he will be weak, if you tell a man he is poor, he will be poor,” illustrating perfectly the reasoning behind the Epic Change model: we treat our partners not as recipients of charity but rather as leaders who possess the strength and resources (i.e., their stories) to improve their own communities – and even to improve other communities in need elsewhere on the globe.

Please click HERE to join me in supporting Epic Change, via 12for12k, as they help with the resources to rebuild Gideon’s school.

This entry was posted on November 24, 2009 at 4:00 am and is filed under Leadership, Possibility, Service. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: Charity, Community, Compassion, Possibilities, Social Media, Tweetsgiving