Hello! This is a piece I am writing for my friend Julia Roberts
and the Youth Volunteers in action.
I first heard of
the Change Heroes organization through a friend who had actually successfully
ran a campaign. She had built her school in Kenya and raised 10,000 dollars for
it. The way the Change Heroes campaign works is, through the website you set up
an account and you add the emails of 33 friends. You then make personalized
videos asking them to donate around 1.33 cents per day for 3 months! The hope
is that your 33 friends will agree and eventually that comes up to 10,000
dollars, enough to build a school! Pretty easy, huh?
The schools are
built in various underprivileged locations where education isn’t
accessible, and they also provide clean drinking water to students! For girls,
this means being able to go to school, instead of taking a multiple mile walk
to bring water back for the family. As well as employing local workers in the
villages to build the school, it was an excellent way to make a difference!
In the summer of
2013 I had visited Cambodia and I saw a lot of children who were not in
schools. Only one student I met within the village had a school uniform on. The
children I met were incredibly bright and independent, yet I later learned that
most of them would take on the trades of their parents, and had no hope of
becoming anything more. This absolutely broke my heart, because I knew there
were many more people in the world who did not have a choice in how their lives
would pan out. Education is a right, and every person should have access to it.
Education allows us to change our lives and make a difference, and I wanted to
help give that ability to more people.
So, after seeing
what my friend was able to do, I was completely amazed. I wanted to start my
own campaign and help contribute to this cause. Of course I was also incredibly
scared. I didn’t think anyone would want to donate, and I was afraid I
would embarrass myself by trying to achieve such a huge task. If I fell short,
I thought everyone would think I was a failure. These are the kind of thoughts
that usually stop us from making a huge difference in the lives around us.
These thoughts stop us from pushing past our mental limits.
I decided to
just take the process very slowly. I started asking around to my friends and
family if they would be interested in this. I slowly gathered around 40 emails
and decided to try. When we work with causes we are passionate about, the fear of
failure gets smaller, I decided that even if I did not raise any money, I would
have learned something about how to go about this process in the future! I
learned how campaigns and non-profit organizations work, as well as becoming
comfortable speaking with the staff of We the People and Change Heroes!
It is important
to note, that I did an extensive amount of research on the organizations and
programs before confirming the organizations legitimacy. There are scams out in
the world, so please if you are interested in raising funds for a program,
educate yourselves on the organization inside and out!
Many of the
people I asked to donate, decided not to, and I was unable to reach the
ultimate goal of 10,000 dollars. Expect these type of things to happen! It is
extremely hard, especially in our area, to find people who are willing to spend
their money on something they have never seen. If you haven’t
seen poverty in third-world countries, the cause is not so urgent to you, those
concert tickets to see Beyonce may have a greater worth, than universal
education. So, whatever cause you choose to do, expect adversity, but do not
see this as a failure. I ended up raising 3,000 dollars, and with the help of
the Change Heroes team (and proper communication) We were able to combine the
funds with another campaign that had not reached 10,000 and build a school! The
amount I raised was used to build a small classroom in Bellavista,
Ecuador! The construction began in
October and it was finished by the beginning of May!
It was an
amazing and totally gratifying experience. I learned a lot about what I value
as a person, and what causes I am the most passionate about. It inspired me to
work more actively in universal education access, and I hope to one day build
more schools to help more people in underprivileged areas.
Below are some
photos of the classroom! Let me know if you have any questions! (jacquelineroman2004
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