Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh . . .
This past Monday was a very big day for me.
Since the 5th of December I have been heading up all efforts involved with soliciting, collecting, and shipping a 40 foot container full of goods to be sent to Cameroon.
This initial shipment is full of many of the items we will need to have a fully operational community center up and running in the city of Kumbo located in the Northwest Provence of Cameroon. We are sending agricultural supplies, construction tools, household goods, books, office supplies, a full kitchen outfit, a Saturn Vue, and a GMC Savana 3500 van.
The community center will be where a thought turns into action. Before when my mom would ask "Son, what is it exactly you all are doing over there?" I would have to respond with a conceptual answer. Now I can tell Mom that we are going to create a fully functional community center that will begin with work study / certification programs in either jewelry manufacturing, sales and marketing or Biovedic (organic / biodynamic) farming techniques for biofuel, medicinal herbs, and aromatic plants. The community center will also offer indirect support, training and assistance to the heart of the community which is an ailing coffee marketing Cooperative Union that has been on a rapid decline in coffee sales over the past 20 -30 years, and in the past seven years has not sold any coffee at all. The problem is not the coffee or the weather, but rather the lack of connectivity to the global marketplace. We will be helping with crop diversification (Agricultural school) as well as becoming the link to global trade.
On the weekends that community center will become a place where people come together to keep the flame of their indigenous cultural heritage alive. This is where we become the student and get to listen to ancient stories, drumming, dancing, singing, and many other wonderful activities.
Once we complete phase one we will be well on our way to realizing our first goal, rural empowerment.
The Community Center is the key to brining back value to a land and a people that have been devalued for thousands of years. Once people see beyond the border of their village or town, and then beyond the borders of their own country, and ultimately beyond continental borders a whole new world will quite literally be staring back at them. To play even the most insignificant role in this awakening is both humbling and energizing at once.
The second core goal of this venture is to create a model of social sustainability.
The only reason that a project like this speaks to a person like myself is that it walks its' talk. How can you set a goal to teach empowerment and sustainability if you yourself are not self sustained? That is where humanitarian aid becomes humanitarian trade. The end result is the same, but teaching trade is where you teach the person to fish. What we are doing will create revenue generating micro-businesses, entrepreneurial and employment opportunities. We are doing all of this without the need to beg for donations. Charity is more addictive than heroine. Even an aid initiative with the purest of intentions can do more harm than it does good. If you tell a person that they are a charity case, they tend to believe you. I have never met a charity case that can help itself, but I have seen these people. They are beautiful, bright, able bodied, and enthused about finding a better way in life. All they need is someone to introduce them to their own potential.
Our last core goal is to create enlightened leaders.
Enlightened leadership is really the offspring of rural empowerment and social sustainability. It is the point at which the training wheels come off and the people take full control of the future. It is the ultimate goal, and the measure of its' success will be when we sit across the table from someone telling us that we are no longer needed.
Then we take it to the next town or the next country or the next continent...
You get the picture.
This time I am excited to take Briana along as she will be one of two founding members of the jewelry making apprenticeship program. She has been training this entire year in the jewelry department so that she has the skills needed to teach the first batch of apprentices. We will most likely be going in early June and will be gone for a minimum of a month, but may need to stay longer. In these early times flexibility and fluidity are key to sanity and success.
Oh container, you were in my thoughts for 4 months, in my life for one afternoon, and now you are gone old friend. Godspeed on your journey, may your contents plant seeds of hope all over Africa and beyond.
