Where
"7
Stages Sustainability"
is a universal, long-term, holistic process, PEPS are locally
adaptable program templates to help communities address specific
issues.
We hope the below
project overviews inspire your involvement with EW as well
as creative use in your own community.
Please stay
in touch and let us know your thoughts, if you'd like
assistance, or what PEPS work for you!
Investing in local knowledge, talents and other sustainable
resources, EW Micro-grants unleash the potential of grass-roots
social entrepreneurs
to address critical global issues in their communities.
How
it works: EW offers extraordinarily dedicated
individuals, institutions, or local service committees with
$200-500usd to invest in income generating and other long-term
social benefit projects. At the grass-roots level, grantees
have a great responsibility to produce tangible results out
of this opportunity. Empowerment Works provides a flexible,
locally adaptive framework and the appropriate guidance so
grantees maintain project ownership and accountability.
Evolution:
EW made its first micro-grant for social entrepreneurs
in March 2006 in the Amazon village of Abenastone, Suriname.
With just 300usd a local man with only partial use of his
arms started a chicken cooperative employing other handicapped
citizens. In January 2007, EW delivered this project to the
slums of Nairobi Kenya, empowering
volunteer teachers to create a youth business practicum at
Amani Children's Center enabling their students to develop
businesses to pay for books, shoes and other basic needs.
Community Trusts for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVCs)
Revolving
income generation start-up fund
In February
2007, building on its 2002 school scholarship support program,
EW asked local citizens in rural Zimbabwe
what they could do to meet the needs of vulnerable orphans.
Building on its Micro-grants for Social Entrepreneurs pilot
project, EW
launched a
revolving income generation start-up fund
in three villages.As the funds were
dedicated to local solutions for AIDS orphans, it was named
EW Community Trusts for Orphans and Vulnerable Children.
How
it works: With
grants starting at 200usd, women's groups, teachers, church
leaders, and grandmothers work together to build and manage
locally based income generation projects optimizing unique
local skills and natural resources. The first community trusts
were invested in local economic opportunities ranging from
community gardens, soap making, uniform sewing to cow trading--
all raising funds and food for vulnerable orphans in the rural
Chivu district.
Beyond Fair Trade™
Global Brand & Marketing Partners
Promoting
economic opportunities that value & protect local heritage
With
the right access to markets and design savvy, income from
Beyond Fair Trade™ products can create jobs and support
local programs.
Using their local resources,
cultural arts and specialized talents our grass-roots partners
create beautiful music,
handmade fabrics and other crafts. Following its founding
program model of T&J Designs in Zimbabwe
and recent launch of EW Music fair
trade label in Senegal, EW
has developed the Beyond Fair Trade™ brand and partner-based
marketing system, linking local projects with fair-trade groups
and private sector distributors.
Opportunity: While
isolated village-based efforts are unable to gain the critical
mass needed for brand recognition, collaborative, corporate
sponsored cause-based marketing campaign (RED)® has become
the 7th largest donor to the Global Fund in its first year
of operation. While a tremendous success in the delivery of
AIDS treatment, it created no jobs for impoverished beneficiaries
- which would address a primary cause of the AIDS pandemic.
Imagine if those products, and the massive distribution networks
of the companies involved used products or elements, (such
as fabrics) and created jobs for the beneficiary groups themselves?
Action
Strategy: With
the aim of creating economic self-sufficiency, thousands of
non-profits struggle to market self-help crafts from their
programs, however we are called to realize that our economic
role, expertise nor capacity is not in marketing. By linking
local projects with fair-trade groups and community conscious
businesses, Beyond Fair Trade™ seeks to integrate the private
sector distribution capacity to build access to markets for
products that value and protect indigenous heritage.
Criteria/
How it works: Sponsoring
businesses apply their expertise in marketing and sustainable
product development while collaborating non-profits monitor
local impacts where the products are made. With the benefit
of pro-bono marketing support, the price points are kept fair,
allowing for 10-20% of gross sales support grass-roots health,
educational and environmental programs in the communities
where products are made.
Global
Impact: Working
together with businesses, artisans and non-profit stakeholders,
the Beyond Fair Trade™ global brand will reverse this inequity,
and advance the sustainable integration of our world economy.
EW
Music: Ethnomusicology
Recordings Program
*
A Beyond Fair Trade™ Product!
Musical
heritage is vital to local communities, both culturally and
economically.
EW Music supports the arts and creates small independent economies
on the one hand; on the other, we give people in the West
the opportunity to buy authentic fair-trade recordings that
keep traditional heritage alive.
How
EW Music Works:
EW-Music
offers African musicians the opportunity to record their music
for free. We issue each recorded artist with a professionally
mixed Master CD for reproduction and a simple cassette cover
with their picture and name. The musicians hold all rights
to their recordings for the African market; they can freely
duplicate, promote and sell their work. EW-Music does not
look for established artists. On the contrary, we offer our
services to the many bands, choirs and individuals who play
music to a high standard in remote areas and who have no means
to record their work. Therefore, almost all the music we record
is traditional. We are interested in collaborating with skilled
musicians on their terms, in representing their art form to
the best of our ability as musicians and in learning about
their music and culture.
Evolution:
In the Casamance region of Senegal, West Africa the local
Diola culture and the vital eco-systems they cherish are at
risk. EW Music is the foundation of a multi-sector strategy
to reverse desertification, combat malaria and assure food
security by advancing economic opportunities that value indigenous
heritage.
Through
EW Music, indigenous people lend their voices, talent and
cultural assets to raise awareness and funds for locally-based
solutions.
While
75% of emissions causing climate change come from cities,
those most vulnerable live in rural areas.
In
the face of globalization, global warming, and the spread
of HIV/AIDS in the developing world, the carbon credit industry
offers economic opportunities for people who need them most.
Purpose:
Village Direct Carbon Offsets (VCDO) seeks to prevent desertification,
build food security and create sustainable livelihoods through
tapping a collaborative network of programs into the world-wide
trading platform supporting community-based ecological restoration
programs.
Empowerment
Works
is reaching out to climate change experts and organizations
to establish implementation criteria and help measure the
carbon impact benefit of locally tailored agro-forestry initiatives.
Empowering
those most at risk to stop HIV/AIDS and take control of their
health
Originally
launched in 2002 in Zimbabwe, the New Life Access Pass is
a collaboration between artists, community centers and health
education groups engaging those most affected by the spread
of AIDS to fight it on the front lines.
How
it works: With EW’s encouragement and minimal
transportation financing, homeless youth, peer educators from
"Streets Ahead" community center & artists from
local craft markets were trained in health awareness outreach
through DESERET International's Education for Life" course.
Together, they led a voluntary HIV testing & counseling
movement in their communities advocating SAFE-SEX-OR-NO-SEX
& guiding people to FREE HIV testing.
Evolution:
Based on this pilot project, EW is now reaching out to
high-risk communities in South Africa, where EW program
director, Dr. Juliana Dahl is working to save lives where
we can in KwaZulu-Natal providence, where 50% of pregnant
women are living with HIV/AIDS. Our aim is to prevent
the anticipated doubling of orphans here in the next 5
years, the same way it has in Zimbabwe over the past 5
years.