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  <atom:title type="html">From Tribeca To Tanzania</atom:title>
  <atom:subtitle>Keely Stevenson wrote about her work with Acumen Fund in Tanzania, working on distribution of mosquito nets.  She has closed this chapter of her blog as she now helps to launch a global social enterprise investment fund from Geneva.</atom:subtitle>

  <atom:updated>2008-05-01T10:38:13-07:00</atom:updated>

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    <atom:entry>

      <atom:title>Closing this Chapter</atom:title>

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          <![CDATA[
          I have loved writing this blog and all the special people it has allowed me to connect with, to learn from and to honor through my stories.&amp;nbsp; It has been fascinating to chronicle my journey working with Acumen Fund and AtoZ, the mosquito net manufacturing company in &lt;st1:country-region w:st="on"&gt;&lt;st1:place w:st="on"&gt;Tanzania&lt;/st1:place&gt;&lt;/st1:country-region&gt;.&amp;nbsp; Just a few weeks ago, AtoZ unveiled a new facility which will allow it to produce over 11 million nets per year as the only African manufacturer of long-lasting insecticide-treated nets to battle malaria.&amp;nbsp; Many came to celebrate in Arusha, including the President of the Unites States.&amp;nbsp; And of course, the debate over public vs. private market distribution of nets continues (click to &lt;a href="http://www.nextbillion.net/newsroom/2008/01/03/the-battle-over-bednets"&gt;see latest BusinessWeek article&lt;/a&gt;). &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I have decided to wrap up this chapter of my blog From Tribeca to Tanzania and take a break for a few months before I write again.&amp;nbsp; &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
In the meantime, I will still be storing up stories to tell you later as I continue to help build Bamboo Finance (&lt;a href="http://www.bamboofinance.com/"&gt;www.bamboofinance.com&lt;/a&gt;) in Switzerland.&amp;nbsp; As many of you have read, my newest adventures are in designing a new Swiss-based asset management company that specializes in social entrepreneurship.&amp;nbsp; We have a great team that provides debt and equity investments to social ventures globally which are addressing critical problems (health, education, shelter, energy, etc.).&amp;nbsp; This company is looking to fill the gap in risk capital for social enterprises described in the article I co-authored this year published by &lt;st1:place w:st="on"&gt;&lt;st1:city w:st="on"&gt;Oxford&lt;/st1:city&gt;&lt;/st1:place&gt; (&lt;a href="http://www.benetech.org/about/downloads/NothingVenturedFINAL.pdf"&gt;click here&lt;/a&gt;). We were recently mentioned in the magazine BusinessWeek with our sister company Blue Orchard (click to &lt;a href="http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/feb2008/gb20080226_955170.htm"&gt;see BusinessWeek article&lt;/a&gt;). &amp;nbsp;If you know of entrepreneurs looking for finance, please don&amp;rsquo;t hesitate to send me a message!&amp;nbsp; We work globally, and next month I am headed to Ghana, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
As promised, I continue to read interesting books and will share my opinions when I blog again.&amp;nbsp; The most recent book is called &lt;a href="http://www.amazon.com/When-Crocodile-Eats-Sun-Memoir/dp/0316158941/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;s=books&amp;amp;qid=1208266257&amp;amp;sr=1-2"&gt;When a Crocodile Eats the Sun&lt;/a&gt; (a gift from a special Zimbabwean family-thanks) and another book I just peeled open is called &lt;a href="http://www.amazon.com/MicroFranchising-Creating-Wealth-Bottom-Pyramid/dp/1847201083"&gt;MicroFranchising: Creating Wealth at the Bottom of the Pyramid&lt;/a&gt; (a gift from &lt;st1:place w:st="on"&gt;&lt;st1:city w:st="on"&gt;Troy&lt;/st1:city&gt;&lt;/st1:place&gt; at Coast Coconut Farms in Kenya-thanks).&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Thanks so much to the community who has been reading my blog, contributing and supporting me.&amp;nbsp; Please continue to contact me to share your ideas.&amp;nbsp; And thank you to the Skoll Foundation and Social Edge team, especially Sally, Victor, Jason, Phil and Cristina for all of the creative ways they supported my opportunity to reflect here. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Here`s a round-up of my most interesting posts:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
    &lt;li&gt; &lt;a href="http://socialedge.org/blogs/from-tribeca-to-tanzania/archive/2006/10/08/you-are-not-smart-enough-to-be-pessimistic"&gt;You are Not Smart Enough to Be Pessimistic&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
    &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://socialedge.org/blogs/from-tribeca-to-tanzania/archive/2006/09/30/today-i-applied-for-food-stamps-and-an-abortion"&gt;Last Night I Applied for Food Stamps and an Abortion&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
    &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://socialedge.org/blogs/from-tribeca-to-tanzania/archive/2006/10/21/sex-the-city-last-night-i-went-to-a-ny-strip-club"&gt;Sex in the City:&amp;nbsp; Last Night I Went to a NY Strip Club&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
    &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://socialedge.org/blogs/from-tribeca-to-tanzania/archive/2006/12/01/how-i-raised-almost-10-000-this-week"&gt;How I Raised $10,000 this Week&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
    &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://socialedge.org/blogs/from-tribeca-to-tanzania/archive/2007/06/25/an-artist-in-tanzania-filex-s-batik-workshop"&gt;Filex, an artist in Tanzania&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
    &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://socialedge.org/blogs/from-tribeca-to-tanzania/archive/2007/01/30/from-2-to-24-striped-socks-behind-me"&gt;From 2 to 24 Striped Socks Behind Me&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
    &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://socialedge.org/blogs/from-tribeca-to-tanzania/archive/2007/03/14/dynamic-distribution-from-the-factory-gates"&gt;Dynamic Distribution from the Factory Gates&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
    &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://socialedge.org/blogs/from-tribeca-to-tanzania/archive/2007/02/05/getting-back-to-living-with-hiv-aids-instead-of-dying-from-it"&gt;Getting Back to Living with HIV Instead of Dying from It&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
    &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="/blogs/from-tribeca-to-tanzania/archive/2007/05/12/shit-business-brings-dignity"&gt;Shit Business Brings Dignity&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
    &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://socialedge.org/blogs/from-tribeca-to-tanzania/archive/2007/06/24/a-screwtape-letter"&gt;A Screwtape Letter&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
    &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.socialedge.org/blogs/from-tribeca-to-tanzania/archive/2007/05/15/female-circumcision/"&gt;Female Circumcision&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;
    &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.socialedge.org/blogs/from-tribeca-to-tanzania/archive/2007/05/06/justice-like-a-hot-dog"&gt;Justice Like A Hot Dog&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;
    &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://socialedge.org/blogs/from-tribeca-to-tanzania/archive/2006/12/25/hear-my-poetry-an-invitation"&gt;My poem- An Invitation&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Asante Sana
          ]]>
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      <atom:author>
        <atom:name>Keely Stevenson</atom:name>
      </atom:author>

      <atom:published>2008-04-15T07:12:49-07:00</atom:published>

      <atom:updated>2008-05-01T10:38:13-07:00</atom:updated>

      
        <atom:category term="AtoZ"/>
      
      
        <atom:category term="Keely Stevenson"/>
      
      
        <atom:category term="Africa"/>
      

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      <atom:title>Post Office offers Girl Child Insurance</atom:title>

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          &lt;p&gt;&lt;font face="Verdana" color="#444444"&gt;A friend just emailed me about a very interesting approach to supporting&amp;nbsp;girls in India.&amp;nbsp; The Indian Postal Service may soon&amp;nbsp;start offering girl child insurance, whereby the girl gets Rs 1 lac ($2,500) at the age of 18 and some kind of conditional cash transfer to the parents for bringing up the girl and delaying marriage till after 18!&amp;nbsp; I hope this can start reversing some of the incentives for female child infanticide.&amp;nbsp; Click below to read more:&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;font face="Verdana" color="#444444"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.hindu.com/2006/12/19/stories/2006121902311100.htm"&gt;http://www.hindu.com/2006/12/19/stories/2006121902311100.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
          ]]>
      </atom:content>

      <atom:author>
        <atom:name>Keely Stevenson</atom:name>
      </atom:author>

      <atom:published>2008-02-16T02:24:48-08:00</atom:published>

      <atom:updated>2008-02-16T02:38:13-08:00</atom:updated>

      
        <atom:category term="India"/>
      
      
        <atom:category term="Kara Bobroff"/>
      

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    <atom:entry>

      <atom:title>Naked Swiss &amp; Spider in Space!</atom:title>

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          &lt;p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;" class="MsoNormal"&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style=""&gt;&lt;font size="3" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"&gt;Things are not always what they seem at first glance.&lt;span style=""&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;Just a few days ago, a NASA space craft &lt;/font&gt;&lt;a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080130/sc_nm/space_mercury_dc"&gt;&lt;font size="3" face="Times New Roman" color="#800080"&gt;flew near Mercury,&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;font size="3"&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman"&gt; the closest planet to the sun, and discovered spider shaped evidence that past volcanic activity had occurred there.&lt;span style=""&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;This is a remarkable finding since it changes the way scientists have perceived the planet previously (thought only to be a cratery and rocky surface with little dynamism).&lt;span style=""&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;&amp;quot;We were continually surprised. It was not the planet we expected. It was not (like) the moon,&amp;quot; said Sean Solomon of &lt;span class="yshortcuts"&gt;Carnegie Institution of Washington&lt;/span&gt;, the mission's lead investigator. &amp;quot;It's a very dynamic planet with an awful lot going on.&amp;quot;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;" class="MsoNormal"&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style=""&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;font size="3" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;" class="MsoNormal"&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style=""&gt;&lt;font size="3"&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman"&gt;This was such a healthy reminder to me that one`s original impressions are sometimes mistaken and it is important to `circle around mysteries many times` to make new discoveries.&lt;span style=""&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;Social entrepreneurs are famous for discovering new ways to look at and address a social problem.&lt;span style=""&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=""&gt;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=""&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;" class="MsoNormal"&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style=""&gt;&lt;font size="3"&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman"&gt;&lt;span style=""&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;" class="MsoNormal"&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style=""&gt;&lt;font size="3"&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman"&gt;&lt;span style=""&gt;&lt;img width="470" height="312" border="0" src="./resolveUid/7a90cb9df983c3415e933550cc4ea80b" alt="Naked Swiss" /&gt;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;" class="MsoNormal"&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style=""&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;font size="3" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;" class="MsoNormal"&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style=""&gt;&lt;font size="3"&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman"&gt;Buuuurrrrrr!!!!!!!&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;" class="MsoNormal"&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style=""&gt;&lt;font size="3"&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman"&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"&gt;&lt;v:shapetype coordsize="21600,21600" o:spt="75" o:preferrelative="t" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" filled="f" stroked="f" id="_x0000_t75"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/v:shapetype&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;" class="MsoNormal"&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style=""&gt;&lt;font size="3"&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman"&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"&gt;&lt;v:shapetype coordsize="21600,21600" o:spt="75" o:preferrelative="t" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" filled="f" stroked="f"&gt;&lt;/v:shapetype&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;font size="3"&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman"&gt;&lt;st1:country-region w:st="on"&gt;&lt;st1:place w:st="on"&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style=""&gt;Switzerland&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/st1:place&gt;&lt;/st1:country-region&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style=""&gt; has about 1800 glaciers and although at first glance they may appear magnificent, almost all of them are losing ground because of climate change. &lt;span style=""&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;If you would have circled around the Aletsch glacier, you might have been lucky enough (or unlucky depending on which view) to catch a glimpse of hundreds of naked bodies recently!&lt;span style=""&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;That&amp;rsquo;s right, this freezing cold striptease orchestrated by artist Spencer Tunick was a part of a Greenpeace campaign to raise awareness of global warming.&lt;span style=""&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;They wanted to &amp;quot;establish a symbolic relationship between the vulnerability of the melting glacier and the human body&amp;quot;.&lt;span style=""&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;According to them, Alpine glaciers have lost about one-third of their length and half their volume over the past 150 years. The Aletsch ice mass has retreated by 115 metres in the last two years alone.&lt;span style=""&gt;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"&gt;&lt;v:shapetype coordsize="21600,21600" o:spt="75" o:preferrelative="t" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" filled="f" stroked="f" id="_x0000_t75"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;span style="font-size: 12pt;"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/v:shapetype&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
          ]]>
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        <atom:name>Keely Stevenson</atom:name>
      </atom:author>

      <atom:published>2008-02-12T08:58:13-08:00</atom:published>

      <atom:updated>2008-02-12T08:58:13-08:00</atom:updated>

      
        <atom:category term="Keely Stevenson"/>
      
      
        <atom:category term="Global Warming"/>
      

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    <atom:entry>

      <atom:title>Confession:  My Connections with Tijuana Drug Dealers</atom:title>

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      <atom:id>7bcd8b5b15c74810b1adf0568548fb0b</atom:id>
      

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          &lt;p&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style="FONT-SIZE: 13pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"&gt;Yes, in my time I have been known to hang around with trouble makers.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;A few weeks ago, I was in Tijuana, &lt;st1:country-region w:st="on"&gt;&lt;st1:place w:st="on"&gt;Mexico&lt;/st1:place&gt;&lt;/st1:country-region&gt; with an inspiring team making trouble for poverty.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;There is an amazing Mexican company called Mi Farmacita, lead by Guillermo Krasovsky, which aims to bring affordable health services to low-income communities using an innovative franchise pharmacy model and minute-clinic style doctor`s office.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;In Mexico, the poor distribution of generic drugs means that low-income communities often do not have access to affordable medicines for common ills such as flu, allergies, arthritis, and they often wait many weeks to see a doctor if at all.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;Mi Farmacita is changing that!&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;Not only are there now quality health services (doctors ad generic drugs) in these communities, Mi Farmacita outlets also sell services such as purified water, phone services and Internet time.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;They now have nearly 80 franchisees throughout &lt;st1:country-region w:st="on"&gt;&lt;st1:place w:st="on"&gt;Mexico&lt;/st1:place&gt;&lt;/st1:country-region&gt;.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;The 16 franchises that have been in operation for at least 22 months process about 90 sales transactions daily, or 2,400 monthly, and sales across the franchise&amp;rsquo;s 57 outlets totaled more than US$2.9 million in 2006.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;Their growth potential in phenomenal.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style="FONT-SIZE: 13pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal"&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style="FONT-SIZE: 13pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"&gt;To learn more about their full model, you can read the WRI case study which is quite comprehensive by clicking&lt;a href="http://www.nextbillion.net/files/What%20Works--Mi%20Farmacita%20Nacional.pdf"&gt; here&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal"&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style="FONT-SIZE: 13pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal"&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style="FONT-SIZE: 13pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"&gt;Guillermo has an entrepreneurial spirit like no other and his passion for helping low-income people in &lt;st1:country-region w:st="on"&gt;&lt;st1:place w:st="on"&gt;Mexico&lt;/st1:place&gt;&lt;/st1:country-region&gt; radiates in the video below:&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal"&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style="FONT-SIZE: 13pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal"&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal"&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style="FONT-SIZE: 13pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style="FONT-SIZE: 13pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt; 

&lt;object width="425" height="355"&gt;&lt;param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/1j2A8wTpQks&amp;rel=1"&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name="wmode" value="transparent"&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/1j2A8wTpQks&amp;rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;

          ]]>
      </atom:content>

      <atom:author>
        <atom:name>Keely Stevenson</atom:name>
      </atom:author>

      <atom:published>2008-02-10T06:29:30-08:00</atom:published>

      <atom:updated>2008-02-10T06:29:30-08:00</atom:updated>

      
        <atom:category term="Keely Stevenson"/>
      
      
        <atom:category term="Health"/>
      
      
        <atom:category term="Mi Farmacita"/>
      
      
        <atom:category term="Mexico"/>
      

    </atom:entry>

  
  

    <atom:entry>

      <atom:title>MyC4- investing in African Entrepreneurs</atom:title>

      <atom:link rel="alternate" type="text/html"
                 href="http://socialedge.org/blogs/from-tribeca-to-tanzania/archive/2008/01/27/myc4-investing-in-african-entrepreneurs">
        http://plone.org/
      </atom:link>

      <atom:id>e66a527ece5d4586904668190271ad9d</atom:id>
      

      <!-- This body below should really be xhtml instead of
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          <![CDATA[
          &lt;p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style="FONT-SIZE: 8pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"&gt;Our world is constantly changing.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;We are closer and closer to each other although we may live thousands of miles away.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;One of the most fascinating examples of this to me is how social ventures are leveraging the Internet to engage the global community in raising resources to support their mission.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;We are seeing new platforms for peer-to-peer online lending such as Zopa, Prosper or &lt;a href="http://www.rangde.org/"&gt;&lt;font color="#0000ff"&gt;RangDe&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/a&gt; in &lt;st1:country-region w:st="on"&gt;&lt;st1:place w:st="on"&gt;India&lt;/st1:place&gt;&lt;/st1:country-region&gt;.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;We are also seeing exciting developments of online platforms to raise capital for microfinance institutions and micro-business owners such as Microplace, Kiva and &lt;a href="http://www.51give.com/welcome.php?langChoice=english"&gt;&lt;font color="#800080"&gt;51Give&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/a&gt; in &lt;st1:country-region w:st="on"&gt;&lt;st1:place w:st="on"&gt;China&lt;/st1:place&gt;&lt;/st1:country-region&gt;.&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style="FONT-SIZE: 8pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style="FONT-SIZE: 8pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"&gt;So, I was encouraged when I heard recently about a new venture in beta testing which is focused on &lt;st1:place w:st="on"&gt;Africa&lt;/st1:place&gt;, called &lt;a href="http://www.myc4.com/Portal/Default.aspx"&gt;&lt;font color="#800080"&gt;MyC4&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. MyC4 is an online community which provides a dynamic platform to create and support new enterprises and commercial innovation in &lt;st1:place w:st="on"&gt;Africa&lt;/st1:place&gt;.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;The vision of the site is to end poverty, and MyC4 has a strict selection process which identifies entrepreneurs looking to develop companies that provide healthy economic prospects for growth.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;The screened entrepreneurs then post their ideas labelled as an Opportunity online so that visitors to the MyC4 website can bid on (to invest in) any open Opportunity on MyC4. The bidding process is based on a &amp;rsquo;Dutch&amp;rsquo; auction which basically means, the more people that are interested in investing, the more favourable the terms (e.g. interest rate) become for the African business.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;Check it out and give them feedback on the beta by clicking here&lt;/span&gt;&lt;font size="3"&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman"&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;: &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang="FR-CH" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-CH"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.myc4.com/Portal/WebForms/About/Default.aspx"&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"&gt;&lt;font color="#800080"&gt;http://www.myc4.com/&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
          ]]>
      </atom:content>

      <atom:author>
        <atom:name>Keely Stevenson</atom:name>
      </atom:author>

      <atom:published>2008-01-27T16:49:21-08:00</atom:published>

      <atom:updated>2008-01-27T16:49:21-08:00</atom:updated>

      
        <atom:category term="Keely Stevenson"/>
      
      
        <atom:category term="Africa"/>
      

    </atom:entry>

  
  

    <atom:entry>

      <atom:title>Update on Believe Begin Become in TZ</atom:title>

      <atom:link rel="alternate" type="text/html"
                 href="http://socialedge.org/blogs/from-tribeca-to-tanzania/archive/2008/01/27/update-on-believe-begin-become-in-tz">
        http://plone.org/
      </atom:link>

      <atom:id>0e957834674c67fd5ba18c9d934cc284</atom:id>
      

      <!-- This body below should really be xhtml instead of
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          <![CDATA[
          &lt;p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"&gt;&lt;font size="3"&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman"&gt;Some of you may remember me announcing the&amp;nbsp;application process for&amp;nbsp;the &lt;a href="http://www.believe-begin-become.com/"&gt;Believe Begin Become&lt;/a&gt; Business Plan competition in &lt;st1:country-region w:st="on"&gt;&lt;st1:place w:st="on"&gt;Tanzania&lt;/st1:place&gt;&lt;/st1:country-region&gt;, sponsored by Google.org and managed by Technoserve.&amp;nbsp;&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp;It is an incentivized, practical training and business development program to help entrepreneurs turn their business ideas into fundable and implementable business plans.&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;It turns out that it has been a smashing success and the final winners have posted their ideas via video online.&amp;nbsp;&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"&gt;&lt;font size="3"&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman"&gt;&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"&gt;&lt;font size="3"&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman"&gt;&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;Here are two examples of the 20 final winners:&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/fsm16d75QUo&amp;amp;rel=1" width="425" height="355" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent"&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/M7sq_vS3ZJA&amp;amp;rel=1" width="425" height="355" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent"&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" size="3"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"&gt;&lt;font size="3"&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman"&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" size="3"&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;&lt;font size="3"&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman"&gt;You can find others here: &lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.youtube.com/believebeginbecome"&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman" color="#800080" size="3"&gt;http://www.youtube.com/believebeginbecome&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
          ]]>
      </atom:content>

      <atom:author>
        <atom:name>Keely Stevenson</atom:name>
      </atom:author>

      <atom:published>2008-01-27T15:37:09-08:00</atom:published>

      <atom:updated>2008-01-27T15:37:09-08:00</atom:updated>

      
        <atom:category term="Keely Stevenson"/>
      
      
        <atom:category term="Technoserve"/>
      
      
        <atom:category term="Tanzania"/>
      
      
        <atom:category term="Africa"/>
      

    </atom:entry>

  
  

    <atom:entry>

      <atom:title>Social Enterprise Funding Opportunties</atom:title>

      <atom:link rel="alternate" type="text/html"
                 href="http://socialedge.org/blogs/from-tribeca-to-tanzania/archive/2008/01/27/social-enterprise-funding-opportunties">
        http://plone.org/
      </atom:link>

      <atom:id>a628e0936d2411af3dccc02a0aa71511</atom:id>
      

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          <![CDATA[
          &lt;p&gt;&lt;font face="Verdana" color="#444444"&gt;I met these guys last week and thought this might be helpful to those of you looking for funding:&amp;nbsp; Investors&amp;rsquo; Circle (IC) is now accepting company applications for its 2008 Spring Venture Fair, which will be held May 6th at the Hotel Nikko in San Francisco.&amp;nbsp; &lt;/font&gt;&lt;font face="Verdana" color="#444444"&gt;IC seeks to feature the next generation of sustainable, mission-driven ventures at this event. Ventures with a focus in the following sectors are encouraged to apply: Energy &amp;amp; Environment, Food &amp;amp; Organics, Health &amp;amp; Wellness, Education, Media, and Community &amp;amp; International Development.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;font face="Verdana" color="#444444"&gt;In the past 3 years, IC venture fairs have resulted in over $20 million in investment for approximately 1/3 of presenting ventures. Sample investments include Guayaki, IceStone, Indigenous Designs, PeaceKeeper Cause-Metics, Niman Ranch, and United Villages.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;font face="Verdana" color="#444444"&gt;To apply, companies will need to submit an electronic application through the IC website by going to http://www.investorscircle.net. The deadline to submit an application is February 1st.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
          ]]>
      </atom:content>

      <atom:author>
        <atom:name>Keely Stevenson</atom:name>
      </atom:author>

      <atom:published>2008-01-27T15:26:34-08:00</atom:published>

      <atom:updated>2008-01-27T15:26:34-08:00</atom:updated>

      
        <atom:category term="Keely Stevenson"/>
      
      
        <atom:category term="Investor's Circle"/>
      

    </atom:entry>

  
  

    <atom:entry>

      <atom:title>Scenes of Silence</atom:title>

      <atom:link rel="alternate" type="text/html"
                 href="http://socialedge.org/blogs/from-tribeca-to-tanzania/archive/2007/12/09/scenes-of-silence">
        http://plone.org/
      </atom:link>

      <atom:id>8fb77e40852e24a2e03b015a72383c05</atom:id>
      

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          <![CDATA[
          &lt;p class="MsoNormal"&gt;At the European Venture Philanthropy Association conference in &lt;st1:state w:st="on"&gt;&lt;st1:place w:st="on"&gt;Madrid&lt;/st1:place&gt;&lt;/st1:state&gt; last month, I met an interesting social entrepreneur named &lt;a href="http://www.schattensprache.de/en/01/04.html "&gt;Andreas Heinecke&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;span style=""&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;He is passionate about overcoming the barriers between &amp;ldquo;us&amp;rdquo; and &amp;ldquo;them&amp;rdquo; and creates exchange platforms that immerse people in worlds very different from their own.&lt;span style=""&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal"&gt;I have heard great things about one of his platforms called &amp;ldquo;Dialogue in the Dark&amp;rdquo; where participants are guided by blind people to experience an exhibit of darkness incorporating various communication interactions.&lt;span style=""&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;He has incorporated this at places such as the World Economic Forum where powerful leaders from around the world communicated in the dark and could not rely on visual communication.&lt;span style=""&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;&amp;ldquo;Dialogue in the Dark&amp;rdquo; has allowed over 4 million people in 19 countries the experience of being out of sight for an hour, several hours, or longer.&lt;span style=""&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;(Although there is no comparison, some friends from Acumen Fund and I went to dark dining at a restaurant in NY where we were blindfolded our entire meal. It really was a good way to put yourself in the realities of the blind).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal"&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;So when I met Andreas last month, he told me about a new invention of his called &lt;a href="http://www.scenesdesilence.ch/site/index.php?lang=en "&gt;&amp;ldquo;Scenes of Silence&amp;rdquo; &lt;/a&gt;here where I live in &lt;st1:city w:st="on"&gt;&lt;st1:place w:st="on"&gt;Geneva&lt;/st1:place&gt;&lt;/st1:city&gt;.&lt;span style=""&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;I went to check it out and found it quite interesting&amp;mdash;for 50 minutes, we were led by a deaf person as our guide into various rooms with exhibits that help teach you to communicate without using sound.&lt;span style=""&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;There is even a little silent bar where you can sit with others and have a drink while communicating on an electronic screen.&amp;nbsp; It was fun, so I recommend it to others who may be visiting &lt;st1:city w:st="on"&gt;&lt;st1:place w:st="on"&gt;Geneva&lt;/st1:place&gt;&lt;/st1:city&gt; soon.&lt;span style=""&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
          ]]>
      </atom:content>

      <atom:author>
        <atom:name>Keely Stevenson</atom:name>
      </atom:author>

      <atom:published>2007-12-09T11:28:39-08:00</atom:published>

      <atom:updated>2007-12-09T11:28:39-08:00</atom:updated>

      
        <atom:category term="Keely Stevenson"/>
      

    </atom:entry>

  
  

    <atom:entry>

      <atom:title>Fashionably Fond of the Producers</atom:title>

      <atom:link rel="alternate" type="text/html"
                 href="http://socialedge.org/blogs/from-tribeca-to-tanzania/archive/2007/12/08/fashionably-fond-of-the-producers">
        http://plone.org/
      </atom:link>

      <atom:id>f073aab42960e8913babe2aadf58d655</atom:id>
      

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          <![CDATA[
          &lt;p&gt;When it comes to fashion, there is an exciting wave of social enterprises pushing the boundaries to spark responsible, ethical and fair trade consumerism.&lt;span style=""&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;And not a minute too soon... I watched a news report the other day on yet ANOTHER sweatshop allegation for the fashion company, the Gap. &lt;span style=""&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1677385,00.html"&gt;Britain's &lt;em&gt;Observer&lt;/em&gt; went undercover in Delhi, India &lt;/a&gt;finding Gap suppliers using children between ages 10 and 13 in conditions &amp;ldquo;close to slavery.&amp;rdquo;&lt;span style=""&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Anyone who has seen the film, &lt;a href="http://www.mardigrasmadeinchina.com/about_the_film.html"&gt;Mardi Gras: Made in China&lt;/a&gt;, has been confronted with the inequalities of globalization as the the film humanizes the commodity chain from &lt;st1:country-region w:st="on"&gt;China&lt;/st1:country-region&gt; to the &lt;st1:country-region w:st="on"&gt;&lt;st1:place w:st="on"&gt;United States&lt;/st1:place&gt;&lt;/st1:country-region&gt;. It follows young workers from the largest Mardi Gras bead factory in the world, providing insights into their economic realities, self-sacrifice, and dreams of a better life, and the severe discipline imposed by living and working in a factory compound.&lt;span style=""&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;Flashing video from Mardi Gras festivities, the film opens the blind eye of consumerism by visually introducing workers and festival-goers to each other.&amp;nbsp; To watch the excerpts of the film, click&lt;a href="http://www.mardigrasmadeinchina.com/watch_listen.html "&gt; here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Bringing the producer and consumer closer to understanding each others realities is powerful.&lt;span style=""&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;Two companies I have learned about recently are giving consumers that powerful choice to get quality fashion AND improve the lives of the producer.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.made.uk.com/info/about-us.html"&gt;MADE&lt;/a&gt;, is a company producing jewelry and accessories.&lt;span style=""&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;All MADE products are designed by influential designers, then sourced and created within disadvantaged communities across &lt;st1:place w:st="on"&gt;East Africa&lt;/st1:place&gt;.&lt;span style=""&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;Following the principles of fair trade they train local artisans in new skills, providing fair wages and support at every level. &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.peopletree.co.uk/about.php"&gt;People Tree&lt;/a&gt; has been pioneering Fair Trade Fashion for a decade with market share in &lt;st1:country-region w:st="on"&gt;Japan&lt;/st1:country-region&gt; and the &lt;st1:country-region w:st="on"&gt;&lt;st1:place w:st="on"&gt;UK&lt;/st1:place&gt;&lt;/st1:country-region&gt;.&lt;span style=""&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;People Tree works with some of the most marginalized people in the world by supporting 50 Fair Trade groups in 15 countries who are &lt;a title="Designing for Fair Trade" href="http://www.peopletree.co.uk/handcrafted.php"&gt;growing cotton, weaving, dyeing, embroidery, stitching etc.&lt;/a&gt; &lt;span style=""&gt;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;They have top notch designers and have &lt;a title="Ecology" href="http://www.peopletree.co.uk/ecology.php"&gt;ecologically sound&lt;/a&gt; methods of production to minimize environmental impact. &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Neither of these companies are charities. &lt;span style=""&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;These are businesses providing the consumers with fashionable products while helping to break the cycle of poverty and empower producers.&lt;span style=""&gt;&amp;nbsp;  Good resources for your holiday shopping!&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
          ]]>
      </atom:content>

      <atom:author>
        <atom:name>Keely Stevenson</atom:name>
      </atom:author>

      <atom:published>2007-12-08T07:35:30-08:00</atom:published>

      <atom:updated>2007-12-08T07:57:14-08:00</atom:updated>

      
        <atom:category term="Keely Stevenson"/>
      
      
        <atom:category term="Made By the People For the People"/>
      
      
        <atom:category term="People Tree"/>
      

    </atom:entry>

  
  

    <atom:entry>

      <atom:title>How Much is Enough?</atom:title>

      <atom:link rel="alternate" type="text/html"
                 href="http://socialedge.org/blogs/from-tribeca-to-tanzania/archive/2007/11/29/how-much-is-enough">
        http://plone.org/
      </atom:link>

      <atom:id>f9692b6b0eb7131dc5d59632e636b6cb</atom:id>
      

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          <![CDATA[
          &lt;p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"&gt;&lt;span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;Many of us are asking ourselves, &amp;quot;how much is enough and what do I need?&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;What really makes me happy?&amp;quot;&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;We know we complicate our lives with consumerism and the comforts of &amp;ldquo;more&amp;rdquo;, but somehow seem trapped in&amp;nbsp;it.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;I&amp;rsquo;ve been fascinated by the buzz about &lt;/font&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.forbes.com/2006/02/09/money-happiness-currency_cx_mn_de_money06_0214moneyland.html"&gt;&lt;font color="#800080"&gt;Happiness research&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt; over the last two years which compares data on wealth, education and marital status with results of happiness surveys.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;What they are discovering (surprise, surprise) is that money actually doesn&amp;rsquo;t make you happy, but in fact, relationships and social interaction have a much higher correlation with happiness. &lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"&gt;&lt;span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"&gt;&lt;span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;As the holiday season comes into play, I thought you all would enjoy this video called &amp;ldquo;What about me.&amp;rdquo; &lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"&gt;&lt;span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt; 

&lt;object width="425" height="355"&gt;&lt;param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/FDSAAlrqAHM&amp;rel=1"&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name="wmode" value="transparent"&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/FDSAAlrqAHM&amp;rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;

&lt;p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"&gt;&lt;span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;Much more to come on this happiness topic&amp;hellip;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
          ]]>
      </atom:content>

      <atom:author>
        <atom:name>Keely Stevenson</atom:name>
      </atom:author>

      <atom:published>2007-11-29T12:58:53-08:00</atom:published>

      <atom:updated>2007-11-29T12:58:53-08:00</atom:updated>

      
        <atom:category term="Keely Stevenson"/>
      

    </atom:entry>

  
  

    <atom:entry>

      <atom:title>Like Chewing-gum Stuck to our Shoes</atom:title>

      <atom:link rel="alternate" type="text/html"
                 href="http://socialedge.org/blogs/from-tribeca-to-tanzania/archive/2007/11/28/like-chewing-gum-stuck-to-our-shoes">
        http://plone.org/
      </atom:link>

      <atom:id>0782af154b9b6b5918d28208e1288e49</atom:id>
      

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          <![CDATA[
          &lt;p&gt;&lt;font size="3"&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman"&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;When I was in &lt;st1:country-region w:st="on"&gt;&lt;st1:place w:st="on"&gt;Kenya&lt;/st1:place&gt;&lt;/st1:country-region&gt; a few months ago, my friend Wendy Mukuru handed me an article in the Sunday Nation newspaper that was really powerful. The article was titled, &amp;ldquo;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.sunwords.com/2007/07/15/being-poor-in-kenya-a-life-of-insults/"&gt;&lt;font color="#800080"&gt;Being Poor in Kenya: a life of insults.&amp;rdquo; &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;The author, Sunny Bindra,&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;paints the picture of life being poor and opens up with: &amp;lsquo;Who would anyone want to be poor in &lt;st1:country-region w:st="on"&gt;&lt;st1:place w:st="on"&gt;Kenya&lt;/st1:place&gt;&lt;/st1:country-region&gt;? We treat the poor no better than chewing-gum stuck to our shoes.&amp;rsquo;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;font size="3"&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman"&gt;He goes on to describe the hardships of falling ill and navigating your way through a system when you are poor.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;He continues with: &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;ldquo;&lt;em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"&gt;Poverty is Problem Number One in &lt;st1:country-region w:st="on"&gt;&lt;st1:place w:st="on"&gt;Kenya&lt;/st1:place&gt;&lt;/st1:country-region&gt;. We can lose ourselves in all the fancy discourse we like; it doesn&amp;rsquo;t go away. The chattering classes can analyse the likely political scenarios in December; they can discuss how many tourists are coming to &lt;st1:country-region w:st="on"&gt;&lt;st1:place w:st="on"&gt;Kenya&lt;/st1:place&gt;&lt;/st1:country-region&gt; this year; they can have forthright debates on Tony Blair&amp;rsquo;s legacy&amp;hellip; &lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;If they lifted their noses from their glasses and closed their mouths for a moment, they would see that they are a tiny minority, an affluent little island of fun surrounded by a heaving, seething sea of abject misery&amp;hellip;There is no easy answer to this problem. A certain amount of poverty is inevitable, after all. But to strip a large part of the population of all esteem is inhuman and unforgivable. &lt;/em&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"&gt;&lt;font size="3"&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman"&gt;The causes of poverty are complex; its solutions have many dimensions. Better health, better education, better opportunities are pre-requisites. A thoughtful approach to economic participation is necessary... But more concern, more awareness, more sensitivity is within each person&amp;rsquo;s grasp. A poor person is just you with less money. Step one is to realise this&amp;rdquo;.&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" size="3"&gt;He points to&amp;nbsp;a few&amp;nbsp;important things. &lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;One is the simple &amp;ldquo;I am you. &lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;You are me&amp;rdquo; philosophy that if we can put ourselves in the shoes of others, all benefit (even if we think we are better off). &lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp;His other point is why &lt;/span&gt;I believe in the market-based approach as one strategy to solving poverty- it brings dignity and voice to the poor, who are producers and consumers in their own right.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;They are the ones who know what they need and want most&amp;mdash;so mechanisms which help producers and providers understand the needs and true realities of their experiences are the most powerful mechanisms to change.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" size="3"&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" size="3"&gt;To read the full article, &lt;/font&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.sunwords.com/2007/07/15/being-poor-in-kenya-a-life-of-insults/"&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman" color="#800080" size="3"&gt;click here.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" size="3"&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" size="3"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
I then came across a very cool video on Youtube about two men in Nairobi who are&amp;nbsp;providing a mobile phone service from their wheelchairs.&amp;nbsp; I have no idea if this is legit, but I loved the idea as it represents so many creative ways that people are making&amp;nbsp;a life and income for themselves.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/o:p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/wvvLdIz08Q4&amp;amp;rel=1" width="425" height="355" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent"&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;
          ]]>
      </atom:content>

      <atom:author>
        <atom:name>Keely Stevenson</atom:name>
      </atom:author>

      <atom:published>2007-11-28T09:58:53-08:00</atom:published>

      <atom:updated>2007-11-28T09:58:53-08:00</atom:updated>

      
        <atom:category term="Keely Stevenson"/>
      
      
        <atom:category term="Kenya"/>
      

    </atom:entry>

  
  

    <atom:entry>

      <atom:title>I Smell a Rat!</atom:title>

      <atom:link rel="alternate" type="text/html"
                 href="http://socialedge.org/blogs/from-tribeca-to-tanzania/archive/2007/11/28/i-smell-a-rat">
        http://plone.org/
      </atom:link>

      <atom:id>81425b409c3950fe1da2f1850b4dbc6f</atom:id>
      

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          <![CDATA[
          &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;span style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal; FONT-SIZE: 9pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold"&gt;One of the most interesting social enterprises I learned about in &lt;st1:country-region w:st="on"&gt;&lt;st1:place w:st="on"&gt;Tanzania&lt;/st1:place&gt;&lt;/st1:country-region&gt; was &lt;a href="http://www.apopo.or"&gt;APOPO&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;Apopo trains sniffer rats to detect explosives and diagnose disease. This unusual idea has been developed into a competitive technology by a group of Belgian and Tanzanian researchers and animal trainers.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp; What an exciting solution because as&amp;nbsp;many of you know, dangerous landmines are a significant issue in many countries and detection processes can be slow and expensive.&amp;nbsp;&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;In addition to the landmines, rats are now being used to sniff out tuberculosis. &lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;Below you can find a short video describing their work in detecting mines left over from the &lt;st1:country-region w:st="on"&gt;&lt;st1:place w:st="on"&gt;Mozambique&lt;/st1:place&gt;&lt;/st1:country-region&gt; civil war.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"&gt;&lt;span style="COLOR: black"&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/B1jrbr4JMHk&amp;amp;rel=1" width="425" height="355" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent"&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;
          ]]>
      </atom:content>

      <atom:author>
        <atom:name>Keely Stevenson</atom:name>
      </atom:author>

      <atom:published>2007-11-28T06:26:06-08:00</atom:published>

      <atom:updated>2007-11-28T06:26:06-08:00</atom:updated>

      
        <atom:category term="Keely Stevenson"/>
      
      
        <atom:category term="Tanzania"/>
      
      
        <atom:category term="Apopo"/>
      

    </atom:entry>

  
  

    <atom:entry>

      <atom:title>Tracking the Millennium Development Goals</atom:title>

      <atom:link rel="alternate" type="text/html"
                 href="http://socialedge.org/blogs/from-tribeca-to-tanzania/archive/2007/11/17/tracking-the-millennium-development-goals">
        http://plone.org/
      </atom:link>

      <atom:id>0b1d1012a7d92c541471d690e0e26b78</atom:id>
      

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          <![CDATA[
          &lt;p style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 15pt"&gt;&lt;font face="Arial" color="#000000" size="2"&gt;A new site was launched last week that I have really found interesting. &lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;The &lt;/font&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.mdgmonitor.org/aboutMDG.cfm"&gt;&lt;font face="Arial" color="#0000ff" size="2"&gt;MDG Monitor&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;font face="Arial" color="#000000" size="2"&gt; shows how countries are progressing in their efforts to achieve the &lt;/font&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.mdgmonitor.org/browse_goal.cfm"&gt;&lt;font face="Arial" color="#0000ff" size="2"&gt;Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;font face="Arial" color="#000000" size="2"&gt;. With the 2015 target date fast approaching, it is more important than ever to understand where the goals are on track, and where additional efforts and support are needed, both globally and at the country level. &lt;/font&gt;&lt;span style="COLOR: #333333"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/span&gt;&lt;font face="Arial" color="#000000" size="2"&gt;The MDG Monitor is designed as a tool for policymakers, development practitioners, journalists, students and others to: &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;TRACK&lt;/strong&gt; progress through &lt;/font&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.mdgmonitor.org/map.cfm?goal=&amp;amp;indicator=&amp;amp;cd="&gt;&lt;font face="Arial" color="#0000ff" size="2"&gt;interactive maps&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;font face="Arial" color="#000000" size="2"&gt; and country-specific &lt;/font&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.mdgmonitor.org/factsheets.cfm"&gt;&lt;font face="Arial" color="#0000ff" size="2"&gt;profiles&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;font face="Arial" color="#000000" size="2"&gt; &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;LEARN&lt;/strong&gt; about countries' challenges and achievements and get the latest &lt;/font&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.mdgmonitor.org/news.cfm"&gt;&lt;font face="Arial" color="#0000ff" size="2"&gt;news&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;font face="Arial" color="#000000" size="2"&gt; &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;SUPPORT&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/font&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.mdgmonitor.org/support.cfm"&gt;&lt;font face="Arial" color="#0000ff" size="2"&gt;organizations&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;&lt;font face="Arial"&gt; working on the MDGs around the world &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 15pt"&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;&lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 15pt"&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;&lt;font face="Arial"&gt;...on another related exciting note, the World Bank also released the African Indicators Report on Wed, which showed that several African economies are now showing signs of the positive growth needed to end decades of poverty, poor growth and stagnation in the continent.&amp;nbsp; African countries had recorded strong growth between 1995-2005, reversing the trend of economic collapses and stagnation between 1975-1995. &lt;!-- -related- --&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 15pt"&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;&lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
          ]]>
      </atom:content>

      <atom:author>
        <atom:name>Keely Stevenson</atom:name>
      </atom:author>

      <atom:published>2007-11-17T10:38:53-08:00</atom:published>

      <atom:updated>2007-11-17T10:38:53-08:00</atom:updated>

      
        <atom:category term="Keely Stevenson"/>
      
      
        <atom:category term="Africa"/>
      

    </atom:entry>

  
  

    <atom:entry>

      <atom:title>Invite the black sheep over for tea?</atom:title>

      <atom:link rel="alternate" type="text/html"
                 href="http://socialedge.org/blogs/from-tribeca-to-tanzania/archive/2007/11/17/invite-the-black-sheep-over-for-tea">
        http://plone.org/
      </atom:link>

      <atom:id>45703982b460fb6a640c43e2ece6de9d</atom:id>
      

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          <![CDATA[
          &lt;p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" size="3"&gt;When I moved to &lt;st1:place w:st="on"&gt;&lt;st1:city w:st="on"&gt;Geneva&lt;/st1:city&gt;&lt;/st1:place&gt; recently, I was quite shocked (and I must admit, entertained) at the sight of a recent &lt;/font&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071019/swiss_electon_071019/20071020?hub=Specials"&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman" color="#800080" size="3"&gt;controversial political campaign poster&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;font size="3"&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman"&gt;.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;As you can see, there is a white sheep standing on the Swiss flag, kicking the black sheep off.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;The largest political party, the Swiss People&amp;rsquo;s Party, created this poster to drive home their election platform against immigration.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;Now this sure didn&amp;rsquo;t make me feel any more welcome, and it certainly made me consider the aftermath of this for many legal, law abiding immigrants in any county who usually are important forces in supporting the economy in many ways for generations to come.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"&gt;&lt;font size="3"&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman"&gt;&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&lt;font face="Verdana" color="#444444"&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"&gt;&lt;font size="3"&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;&lt;font face="Verdana" color="#444444"&gt;&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&lt;img style="WIDTH: 343px; HEIGHT: 213px" height="369" alt="" width="473" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1002/1339641587_43216466d1.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"&gt;&lt;font size="3"&gt;&lt;font color="#000000"&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman"&gt;&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;Don&amp;rsquo;t the other white sheep look bored in this poster?&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" size="3"&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" size="3"&gt;So, I was glad to get a phone call from David several days later, who founded the Tennessee Immigrant &amp;amp; Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRR) &lt;/font&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.tnimmigrant.org/"&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman" color="#0000ff" size="3"&gt;http://www.tnimmigrant.org&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" size="3"&gt; &lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;For eight years, David has been working to try to build bridges between immigrants and native-born Tennesseans. The purpose- to build a welcoming environment for immigrants and prevent a resurgence in the kind of racism we saw in the Jim-Crow, segregationist South. Immigration brings out fears, and fears lead to intolerance and xenophobia if not addressed.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" size="3"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" size="3"&gt;According to him (and the obvious example above), the same fears experienced in the South are growing in &lt;st1:place w:st="on"&gt;Europe&lt;/st1:place&gt;. &lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;So, he has been developing tools that bring together people who thought they were anti-immigrant with immigrants themselves. &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" size="3"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"&gt;&lt;font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" size="3"&gt;TIRRC has a project called &amp;quot;Welcoming Tennessee&amp;quot; which is half public relations campaign, half community organizing campaign. The goal- change people's hearts and minds about immigrants and then demonstrate with scientific polling that you have improved the climate for immigrants in a specific geographical area. This program is becoming a national model in the &lt;st1:country-region w:st="on"&gt;U.S.&lt;/st1:country-region&gt;, and from my conversation with David, he would like to export this to &lt;st1:place w:st="on"&gt;Europe&lt;/st1:place&gt;.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;Would be cool to come back to &lt;st1:country-region w:st="on"&gt;&lt;st1:place w:st="on"&gt;Switzerland&lt;/st1:place&gt;&lt;/st1:country-region&gt; down the road and have the major party with campaign posters that have the black sheep and white sheep together drinking tea.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
          ]]>
      </atom:content>

      <atom:author>
        <atom:name>Keely Stevenson</atom:name>
      </atom:author>

      <atom:published>2007-11-17T09:39:30-08:00</atom:published>

      <atom:updated>2007-11-17T10:24:19-08:00</atom:updated>

      
        <atom:category term="Keely Stevenson"/>
      

    </atom:entry>

  
  

    <atom:entry>

      <atom:title>From Banana Trees to Bamboo</atom:title>

      <atom:link rel="alternate" type="text/html"
                 href="http://socialedge.org/blogs/from-tribeca-to-tanzania/archive/2007/11/14/from-banana-trees-to-bamboo">
        http://plone.org/
      </atom:link>

      <atom:id>2e317717190bcd7f664b2aae14296702</atom:id>
      

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          <![CDATA[
          &lt;font face="Arial" size="3"&gt;
&lt;p align="left"&gt;After a love affair with Tanzania, I have completed my fellowship with Acumen Fund and AtoZ, and boarded a plane to cold, neutral territory. Known for chocolate, cheese, watches and private wealth banking, I am beginning a new adventure in Geneva, Switzerland.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align="left"&gt;Why from Tanzania to Switzerland?&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align="left"&gt;Last March, a friend of mine introduced me to Jean-Philippe de Schrevel, the founder of &lt;a href="http://www.blueorchard.com"&gt;Blue Orchard Finance&lt;/a&gt;. Blue Orchard is an asset management company that has created investment vehicles which link commercial investors and microfinance institutions (MFIs). It has been a pioneer in tapping the commercial capital markets at scale to finance the growth of sustainable MFIs and influenced mainstream banks to look at lending to the poor as a business opportunity&amp;hellip;thus resulting in over USD700M in loans to MFIs in emerging economies. &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align="left"&gt;In the spirit of social entrepreneurship and with a vision for efficient capital markets for social ventures, I have joined Jean-Philippe in launching a new company called &lt;strong&gt;Bamboo Finance&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Who is Bamboo Finance:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/strong&gt;We are a new global investment advisory firm that supports sustainable businesses addressing the world's most critical social and environmental problems. &lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align="left"&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What does Bamboo Finance do:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/strong&gt;We identify investment opportunities and engage social enterprises that are capable of offering a blended return. We believe that through commercial investment, capital markets can be tapped at scale to fuel market-based approaches which improve the quality of life. Our first fund, Oasis Fund, offers a blended return (social, environmental and financial) to investors and offers both loans and equity to social and environmental ventures around the world, with a strong priority on models which directly impact low-income and 'base of the pyramid' markets.&amp;nbsp;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align="left"&gt;This is all very exciting stuff that I hope to continue to share with you as this experiment continues&amp;hellip;. I have an archive of stories I still wish to blog about from Africa, so will likely be continuing to write those as well.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/font&gt;
          ]]>
      </atom:content>

      <atom:author>
        <atom:name>Keely Stevenson</atom:name>
      </atom:author>

      <atom:published>2007-11-14T02:01:52-08:00</atom:published>

      <atom:updated>2007-11-14T02:01:52-08:00</atom:updated>

      
        <atom:category term="Keely Stevenson"/>
      
      
        <atom:category term="Blue Orchard"/>
      
      
        <atom:category term="Bamboo Finance"/>
      

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