2013 Youth Human Rights Delegation to Rwanda

Dear Reader:

 Although I have traveled many places in the world, this is the first time I am campaigning to raise funds for my work abroad. I was accepted into being part of a 14 person delegation from the US to Rwanda to engage in human rights conversations with 14 Rwandan participants. I have been blessed to have been able to see as many countries as I have and the amount of poverty and suffering in our present world is insane, unbearable and unacceptable. I have made it my life's work to learn how we can reduce global suffering and of course, this requires a lot more education and learning on my part. That is why I have spent so much time researching the best method of promoting international peace and have found this amazing program. 

 Please check out the work of Global Youth Connect at Globalyouthconnect.org. 

Below is a copy/paste from my Indiegogo fundraiser.

I will be using this blog to keep in touch during my time in Rwanda for 3 weeks in August 2013. 

Blessings and love to you!

~ Danielle 

Ordinary People Can Change the World (but not without your generous help!)

I am not here to convince you that I am more than an ordinary person, because I am not. But I have an extraordinary drive to do something amazing with my life to help other people and I want you to be a part of it. I am a Social Work (with an emphasis in Native American and Rural populations) graduate student at Humboldt State University and I hope to spend my life working in International Social Work with global poverty, human rights and promoting peace. So far I have spent my life trying to face the suffering of the world and do something about it. I was born an extremely sensitive person, the suffering of the world seemed too large to face and I grew up feeling that I was brought to the earth to lessen the suffering of others. As I grew up I learned that while I can't "save" everyone, I can at least help some people and the more I educate myself and collaborate with others, the more helpful I can become. I saved up when I was 16 and volunteered abroad in an orphanage in Guatemala and later on I extended my stay in India after my semester abroad as a Benjamin A. Gilman Scholar and volunteered for a very short period in a HIV orphanage just outside of Bangalore, India. I fell in love with the children there and I wanted to spend the rest of my life there in the HIV orphanage (see their website at Snehacarehome.org) but I knew I had to continue my education in the US to learn how to effectively work in international human rights and advocacy. These experiences have prompted me to ask for your help to further my positive impact abroad and to help me fly half way across the world, to a small country in Africa to work with people my age there to see if we can shed some light on how to prevent the most awful atrocities that can happen to human beings by other human beings, genocide. As a person from Jewish heritage, I understand how I could have easily been a victim of genocide had I been born just 50 before I was. I want to use my education and abilities to learn how humans are capable of such atrocities and to learn alongside my Rwandan peers how we can prevent it as a global community. I have watched almost every single documentary about human rights, the environment, the world governments, and NGOs trying to figure out how I could make the most impact in this life I have been given. The conclusion I have encountered is to connect with people around the world and look for a solution together.

Funding me will be funding the revolutionary idea that youth in the US and youth in Rwanda can work together in one room, in a constant dialogue, moving towards preventing genocide and abuses of human rights worldwide. 100% of funds donated will go towards Global Youth Connect ($2300 for the program, $1900-$2000 for plane ticket SFO - Kigali), FEDERAL EIN # 52-1655875. Global Youth Connect is an amazing NGO that works with connecting youth from the US with youth in post-conflict/post-genocide countries like Rwanda, Cambodia, Sarajevo, and more. This is the type of work that will bring world peace and world unity that is desperately needed for progress in the current generations of youth. Please see their website at Globalyouthconnect.org and see the information on the Rwanda youth delegation for 2013 which is highlighted on the website. All donations to Global Youth Connect are tax deductible.

**If you would like to donate your frequent flier miles (which would be AMAZING!!), please contact me at Danielleaubin@care2.com**
Any and all help is so appreciated, you are truly making my dreams of working in International Peace Promotion a reality!

What Is Needed And Why:

Through this Human Rights Delegation with Global Youth Connect, I will be able to work side by side with 14 youth (ages 18-35) who grew up in Rwanda and are interested in human rights activism in their home country. The cost of the program is $2300 for 3 weeks (this cost includes the cost of one Rwandan participant's participation fees) and the plane ticket from SFO to Kigali, Rwanda is $1900. I hope to raise $4000 which would cover the majority of these costs and any extra funds will be donated to the NGO in Rwanda AJPRODHO which is an organization that supports the rights of young people in Rwanda through Child Protection projects & Gender Based Violence prevention campaigns (forming community committees on GBV and Child Protection, creating films about the two issues, youth networking with other youth organizations), legal aid, as well as research and policy papers (most recently on the rights of incarcerated youth).

Program Tuition Breakdown (from Globalyouthconnect.org)


45% Staff support and project management in U.S. and Rwanda, including U.S.-based and Rwandan staff

35% Hotel and project travel expenses

10% Direct costs of training and service projects (excluding travel and hotel).  The participation costs of the Rwandan participants are included in the program fee.

10% GYC administrative costs

So what will you receive??
If you donate $25 you will receive a post card from Rwanda with exciting information regarding our Human Rights dialogue plus a quote that offers wisdom and insight into Rwanda and their history. For $50 you will get the postcard plus a handwritten letter speaking about a specific issue in Rwanda and what NGOs are doing about it. For $100 donation you will receive a postcard, a handwritten letter and a flower with a prayer for the victims placed at a mass grave at Kigali Genocide memorial. More than $250 donations will receive a post card, hand written letter, flower placed at a mass grave, a prayer given in your name at the Kigali memorial for the victims and a photo of the beauty of Rwanda posted on my Blog with in your honor.

All donors will be welcome to keep up with my blog during my time in Rwanda. All donors will be thanked by name in my blog.

 

Why Should I Go?

Many times it is easier to think that because the pressing issues in the world are so well know, there are many people out there fixing them. Unfortunately after spending every cent I have ever earned traveling the world (and by earning a Gilman Scholarship which is for very low-come students), I have seen that the problems in the world are so large and mismanaged that there is a lot of room for activism, volunteerism and international collaboration. So many people live in squalor and degradation, many people in the global south don’t have clean drinking water or a secure income. My purpose and life’s goal is to educate myself enough to be able to enact change in the global scale to alleviate poverty and ensure that all people enjoy the human rights as outlined by the Declaration of Human Rights.


Participating in this Human Rights Delegation to Rwanda will give me the ability to volunteer with Rwandan NGOs, listen to politicians in the area and working with my Rwandan peers in understanding how to prevent human rights abuses now and forever more. I will be able to use my skills as a Suicide Prevention Hotline Operator, a California State Certified Sexual Assault Counselor and more to work with people and hear their stories so the healing process of previous human rights abuses. My unique perspective from my background and experience will allow me to offer something different to the international dialogue on human rights. Global Youth Connect is a by youth for youth organization, the youth are the future and the connection between African youth and American youth will encourage long term peace between the nations and collaboration on the difficult global human issues that arise. This delegation will allow me to carry the voices of so many of my peers in the US who want to speak out in the international community against human rights abuses and work with others towards global human rights but who will not have the opportunity to go abroad and do it.
As I have matured as a human being and been able to really give some thought to what it means to come from a privileged country, I realized that I need to do a whole lot more listening to the wisdom of my peers in the developing world before I can truly help the global community tackle issues like global poverty and war. I need to learn how to work with people who are experts about their own countries to truly be able to enact real sustainable change and growth through my work abroad. There is a lot to learn from conversing with my sisters and brothers in countries like Rwanda that have seen such great suffering and through our work together real movement towards equal human rights for all can occur.

Other Ways You Can Help

I fully understand not everyone is fortunate enough to have extra money they can give to causes they are passionate about. Just educating yourself on the issues of genocide, human rights and the global disparities between the global south and north is enacting a huge shift in consciousness. What we think becomes what we do and what we do becomes who we are. Changing our thinking and educating us on these issues is as good as giving money to the cause itself.

And if anyone ever thinks one person cannot make a difference, please read this story and thank you so much for all your support:


A young girl was walking along a beach upon which thousands of starfish had been washed up during a terrible storm. When she came to each starfish, she would pick it up, and throw it back into the ocean. People watched her with amusement.

She had been doing this for some time when a man approached her and said, “Little girl, why are you doing this? Look at this beach! You can’t save all these starfish. You can’t begin to make a difference!”

The girl seemed crushed, suddenly deflated. But after a few moments, she bent down, picked up another starfish, and hurled it as far as she could into the ocean. Then she looked up at the man and replied,

“Well, I made a difference to that one!”

-  from the Star Thrower by Loren C. Eiseley