Top 10 Youth Activism Victories in 2007

Who: American Youth
Ages: 13-30
What: Top 10 Youth Activism Victories in 2007

The following is a series of stories of American youth across the country making a difference through action–not just words–throughout 2007. This is an inspirational article that provides details of what the youth of America are doing to make a positive difference in the world. We hope to hear what you the readers thoughts are on this article. This article was published by WireTap.

Top 10 Youth Activism Victories in 2007
By Nicole McClelland and Kristina Rizga, WireTap
Posted on January 4, 2008, Printed on January 23, 2008

Anyone who laments that American young people are apathetic, uninvolved or not sufficiently outraged clearly isn’t up on the news.

Luckily, though, we are. The past 12 months have been filled with many great youth organizing successes; some were covered extensively by mainstream media, and some went — sadly — unnoticed. From these extraordinary stories, Wiretap has culled a list of our favorite 10 youth victories of the year. They’re not just the events you’ve heard about, like the hunger strikes at Harvard and Stanford, because the less-attended actions of low-income, low-profile youth groups can be equally triumphant. And they’re not just acts of campus activism, either — because half of Americans between the ages of 18 and 25 are not enrolled in college. And though there are countless other examples of protest, cooperation, and informed dissent that went on and are still continuing around the country, here are 10 especially inspirational stories that went down this year. Congratulations to these and all other young people who took responsibility and took charge in 2007 to work hard both with their peers and with other groups, who put their energies into action for their communities, and for the world.

Environmental Activism: Stepping It Up

It’s time to go way beyond just switching light bulbs to fight global warming, and this year young people from all over the country proved their commitment to the planet. In February, nearly 600 student groups staged events during the Campus Climate Challenge Week of Action. But activists were just getting started, and college campuses were barely the starting point. On April 14, Step It Up — the brainchild of a group of young people and environmentalist and author Bill McKibben — brought people together at 1,400 locations nationwide demanding that Congress cut carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050. It was such a success that organizers kicked off Step It Up 2 just seven months later and got 14,000 messages sent to Congress and presidential candidates, 80 of whom sent statements or representatives or showed up at events. That same month, at Power Shift 2007, 5,500 young activists from across the country got together at the University of Maryland College Park to make Congress change its colors. Over four days in November, participants staged a rally on the Capitol and held more than 300 lobbying meetings to pressure congresspeople to provide more green jobs and greener policies for a greener, brighter, more sustainable future.

Shutting Toxic Things Down

In a more local, but just as important, triumph for the environment, the members of Youth United for Community Action, an organization created and run by youths of color ages 13-30 in the Bay Area, became heroes of their neighborhood and role models for grassroots organizers nationwide when California granted their wish to shut down a hazardous-waste-handling company that had been plaguing the vicinity for more than four decades. YUCA worked to rid its community of Romic Environmental Technologies Corporation, which had been fined (pdf) for multiple hazardous-waste violations by the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, for 16 years. Now that the state issued the order that Romic close most of its East Palo Alto operations, YUCA and its constituents can breathe a little easier — and much more safely.

Preserving Community Land and Culture

In another major local victory for the environment, Save the Peaks, a coalition formed to protect the San Francisco Peaks in Arizona, won a court order that defended the sacred site. For years, the Arizona Snowbowl ski resort has operated on this traditionally holy ground, and in 2004 the U.S. Forest Service approved the company’s plans to expand — which included cutting down 74 acres of trees and using treated sewage water to make artificial snow. The plans posed a threat to the ecosystem, the health of surrounding communities, and the religious freedom of the 13 Native American Nations that hold the mountains hallowed. The Youth of the Peaks worked together with the coalition, protesting at the foot of the resort to let tourists know the issues surrounding the grounds they’re playing on. In March, the 9th Circuit Court ruled that the expansion plans be stopped.

On October 17th, the court granted Arizona Snowbowl and the U.S. Forest Service an appeal, which was heard on December 11th. Far from giving up, tribes and young activists in the coalition attended the case, and are encouraging others to take action as well while the community waits for a decision.

Elementary Education Nation

American schools are in deep trouble. More than half of black students in Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, New York, and Pennsylvania attend high schools in which the majority of students do not graduate. Nearly 40 percent of Latino students and 11 percent of white students drop out of high school (pdf).

Tired of waiting for politicians and philanthropists, who have pledged for decades to reform education, high school students worked diligently to improve their own schools in 2007. From Urban Youth Collaborative and DRUM in New York, to Rethinkers in New Orleans, to Youth for Justice in Los Angeles, youths across the country organized around everything from violence prevention to building eco-friendly, clean bathrooms. The Detroit Summer Collective is an especially innovative, all-volunteer-run program. In addition to making a documentary in 2007 that looks at the root causes and student-driven solutions to the high drop-out rates, the Collective is transforming the entire city of Detroit by teaching young people how to maintain organic gardens and sell produce to their communities, as well as organizing monthly city pot lucks that act as interracial and intergenerational town halls. A democracy can’t thrive without informed citizens, and if the world’s wealthiest and most powerful one won’t provide a decent K-12 education, these students will bring their communities together to do it.

Higher Education for the Masses, for Real

Another crucial tool for social mobility in the United States, is access to college. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, 42 percent of Asians and 40 percent of whites think that the vast majority of people who are qualified to go to college have the opportunity to do so. Why did 82 percent of Latinos and 75 percent of blacks say no? Probably in part because college tuition has been ever increasing and throwing more students into debt. Which is why the passing of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, the most significant tuition reform bill in 15 years, was an incredible achievement. Students nationwide brought the issue to the attention of both the media and their peers, and worked closely with politicians in swing districts. For two years, PIRG and United States Student Association have been mobilizing to get college affordability on the congressional agenda. PIRG’s Raid on Student Aid campaign generated more than 10,000 phone calls, in addition to lobbying meetings and emails. The very fact that students were vital to getting the legislation passed shows how important they are for change, and now the Act will help generate even more students. Says PIRG’s Luke Swarthout, “Without the work of students over the past two years, Congress probably wouldn’t prioritize legislation like the College Affordability and Access Act.”

Students in Maine scored two victories this year, when their state legislators voted unanimously to approve a citizen ballot initiative that will provide a tax credit to all graduates to offset their student loan repayment as long as they stay in Maine. The League of Young Voters worked with hundreds of volunteers to gather 73,000 signatures that helped get this unprecedented measure passed.

Freeing the Jena 6

The day after a few courageous black students at Jena High School in Louisiana sat under a campus tree traditionally claimed by white students, two nooses were dangling from it. When white youths assaulted black students later that year, they were tried as juveniles and got away with a slap on the wrist. But when black students retaliated, the district attorney tried the six 15- to 17-year-olds as adults and charged them with attempted second-degree murder, for which each potentially faced more than 20 years in prison.

A year later, despite mainstream media silence, this story burst into national prominence thanks to the most massive civil-rights-movement mobilization since the ’60s when over 10,000 college students, activists, and hip-hop artists converged on Jena. Thousands of youths in Jena and students on campuses nationwide protested a case that epitomized a long-standing history of unfair sentencing of people of color in America. The U.S. has the highest absolute, per-capita, and juvenile rate of incarceration in the world, with a tenth of all black men between ages 20 and 35 in jail or prison. The Jena 6 defense campaign mobilized millions of socially conscious youth, who represent the future leaders in the fight against the persistence of subtle and not-so-subtle racism in America. This massive, grassroots-driven campaign helped overturn the original sentences of the Jena 6, momentum that could be used to help thousands of other youths of color in America who were tried in the same, broken system to attain justice and re-enter their communities.

Filling Health Care Needs, Post-Katrina

In 2005, Shana Griffin and the other members of the New Orleans Women’s Health and Justice Initiative thought it would be easy to raise money for a women’s health clinic post-Katrina. The devastated city — with few cops, lots of strangers, staggering crime, and limited care — was far from an ideally safe environment for women. “But we got a reality check,” she says; donations were far from pouring in. So the Initiative worked together with INCITE, a national activist organization of women of color against violence, many of whose members are under 30, meeting up four times a week. The women, who had no experience running a clinic, pooled and applied their applicable respective skills and secured and renovated a space, learned everything they could about the logistics of providing health care, put out calls for and coordinated volunteers, and raised funds. Just a year and a half after the idea was conceived, and “through hard work and sweat,” on May 1, 2007, the New Orleans Women’s Health Clinic opened. A group of paid staff and volunteers provides everything from prenatal care to reproductive health, sex health, and routine preventative health services four days a week. And the women who labored to provide the much-needed assistance to their peers are working hard to keep it that way.

Fairer Immigrant Wages? Lovin’ It.

Two years of organizing and protesting finally paid off in April for the Student/Farmworker Alliance, which, in partnership with the immigrant-laborer-led Coalition of Immokalee Workers, finally achieved results from its long-standing boycott against McDonald’s. The company agreed to pay an extra penny per pound to its tomato suppliers, nearly doubling the wages of the impoverished pickers in Florida. A month later, the parent company of Taco Bell, which struck a similar deal with the activists in 2005 after four years of their perseverance, announced that it would expand the agreement to its four other chains, including Pizza Hut and A&W.

Thanks to some long, tireless efforts, some of the country’s biggest fast-food chains have improved their wage standards. But despite an amazingly successful year, the SFA and CIW aren’t about to take a break now: They’re still hard at work on getting Burger King to join the much-needed movement.

Anti-War Mobilization: Just Say “Hell No”

First, the 29-year-old Army Lt. Ehren Watada — who was willing to serve in Afghanistan or any other conflict he didn’t consider so morally and politically unconscionable — refused to deploy to Iraq; his actions subsequently inspired increasing numbers of soldiers to mobilize for an end of the war in Iraq. Then, on Friday, November 16th, the Youth Against War and Racism called for a high school walkout. More than 1,000 students from the Puget Sound area alone left their classes that morning to protest the war and a problem even closer to the students: military recruiters in schools. Participating in the walkout were more than 125 students from Foster High School in Tukwila district, Washington, where military recruiters prey on students, 71 percent of whom are from low-income families. When several Foster teachers who supported the protest were threatened with disciplinary action, students rallied to their support; ultimately, teachers weren’t punished. Though many expect youths, especially low-income, to support and even fight in the war, they proved this year, once again, that they are not going to take it sitting down.

Don’t Forget Darfur

Three years after the United States classified the situation in Darfur, Sudan, as a genocide, students are still organizing to make sure the crucial cause doesn’t get ignored. In April, two thousand white-clad activists played dead in Boston Commons for five minutes of silence. In December, thousands of students worldwide fasted to raise money to fight rape in the African region. STAND, a student anti-genocide coalition, helped organize those events and hundreds of others this year. Students have been signing petitions, lobbying representatives, staging events — anything to keep Darfur in the news. And the coverage has paid off. Companies have started divesting in ventures that support the government that allows the genocide to continue, and awareness is at an all-time high. As long as the violence rages, so will the activism. “The world has been slow to act to protect the people of Darfur,” said STAND student director Scott Warren, “so students across the globe will be taking protection into their own hands.”

Here’s to anticipation for what a new generation of young activists will accomplish in 2008.

Nicole McClelland is the founding editor of the online literary magazine The Extrovert and an editor of Mother Jones. Kristina Rizga is an editor and publisher of the online Wiretap magazine.

Charities v. Businesses

This week’s post is central to the Believe In Youth mission statement. The focus is not about actual stories of youth making a difference, but rather what some of our elders are doing. This is a long post, but a very worthy read.

We are reporting two stories polar opposite in nature. The first is a Washington Post article concerning the misallocation of funds by veterans charities with an accompanying video. We are in no way condemning the charities or casting them guilty before being proven so. Rather, we are trying to make our audience readily aware of the operations of some charities. We urge everyone to research before giving. With so many productive charities and worthy causes, it would be a shame to give funds to a charity misallocating.

The second is a Wall Street Journal article about Google.org, “a massive philanthropic endeavor that erases the usual boundaries between the for-profit and nonprofit worlds” (WSJ). About four years ago, Google announced it was “devoting 1% of its equity, 1% of annual profit and an unspecified amount of employee time to Google.org,” and “yesterday’s announcement gives much-awaited shape and focus to its activities.”

Both articles come with videos, and we would love to see some commenting and discussion on this topic. BIY is also pleased to announce we will begin posting Wednesday articles this week in addition to Sunday articles, courtesy of Thabet Marzuq. We will also begin sending weekly news to our Facebook group (join here).

Scrutiny Of Veterans Charities Continues
Calif. Businessman Sees ‘Witch Hunt’
By Philip Rucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 17, 2008; A01

With scores of U.S. soldiers returning home from Vietnam, California businessman and Army veteran Roger Chapin founded a charity in 1971 dedicated to those troops recuperating in hospitals.

Over the next three decades, Help Hospitalized Veterans would distribute millions of therapeutic craft kits to make moccasins, wooden wind chimes and other trinkets and would win accolades from presidents and Hollywood celebrities alike.

Yet, as the nonprofit enterprise has ballooned into one of the country’s largest veterans charities, reporting $71.3 million in donations during the past fiscal year, its spending practices have drawn sharp criticism from charity watchdogs.

Between 1997 and 2005, the charity paid $3.8 million in salary and benefits to Chapin and his wife and spent more than $200 million on fundraising and public education campaigns, according to a Washington Post analysis of federal tax filings. The public records also show that the charity awarded at least $19 million in contracts during that period to companies owned by Richard A. Viguerie, a prominent conservative political commentator and advertising consultant based in Virginia.

Help Hospitalized Veterans is one of several military-oriented charities whose spending practices are the subject of a congressional investigation. Chapin evaded U.S. marshals trying to serve him with a subpoena last month, said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Chapin, who has since been served, is expected to testify today before the committee.

Chapin, who has founded more than 20 nonprofit organizations over three decades, also is president and founder of the Coalition to Salute America’s Heroes, a smaller charity that provides emergency financial assistance to veterans and their families. That group is also under investigation by Congress, according to committee staff members, and is expected to be a subject of today’s hearing.

“We’re talking about an individual that has tried to duck the committee; he refused to testify voluntarily. It appears he has something to hide, and if you look at his past operations, there are very good reasons to be suspicious about his activities,” Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), a committee member, said in an interview.

Van Hollen said the committee wants to find a way to distinguish between charities that truly serve veterans and those “committing fraud against the public.”

Chapin, reached at his San Diego home last month, said watchdogs and members of Congress are misrepresenting his charities.

“You don’t know me, but these guys have got this thing so wrong, it’s unbelievable,” the 75-year-old said. “It’s a witch hunt. They’re totally misrepresenting what the facts are.”

No laws at the federal or state level regulate the amount of money charities spend on overhead, fundraising or charitable causes. The American Institute of Philanthropy, a leading charity watchdog, issued a report last month suggesting that Help Hospitalized Veterans and 19 other veterans charities manage their resources poorly, paying high overhead costs and direct-mail fundraising fees.

Critics have not contended that all veterans charities manage their funds poorly. Some charities, including the Fisher House Foundation and the Disabled American Veterans Charitable Service Trust, consistently have received high marks from watchdogs.

But Help Hospitalized Veterans spends 31 percent of its funds on charitable causes, said Daniel Borochoff, president of the American Institute of Philanthropy. The institute recommends that charities spend at least 60 percent of their funds on charitable programs.

“They’re raising tens of millions of dollars for the craft kits, which is a nice treat for the veterans, but there’s a tsunami of need out there, and giving them a craft kit is not helping them that much,” Borochoff said.

Some recipients of Help Hospitalized Veterans’ direct-mail solicitations said they were surprised by the frequency and heft of the mailings.

“Those guys are relentless,” said James Lynch, a veteran from Merced, Calif. “These guys seem to hit me from twice a year to every four months. Anytime they’re spending money on postage and things like that, I wonder what the return is on it.”

High overhead costs can be expected for start-up charities, Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) said in an interview. But he said it is important to determine whether some veterans charities have been “a serial swindler in terms of taking people’s money and not spending it.”

Help Hospitalized Veterans paid Chapin $426,434 in salary and benefits in the past fiscal year, The Post’s review of a tax filing showed. His wife, Elizabeth, received $113,623 in salary and benefits as “newsletter editor,” the filing shows.

In the filing, the charity reports that the Chapins each worked 40 hours per week. In a separate tax filing, the Coalition to Salute America’s Heroes reported that Roger Chapin worked another 40 hours per week for his job there but did not collect pay.

Mike Lynch, executive director of Help Hospitalized Veterans, said the charity’s board considers Chapin’s wages “proper compensation.”

“He’s a dynamo,” said Thomas Palma, the coalition’s general manager. “You might find it hard to believe, but we do an awful lot of good things as a result of his efforts and his ideas.”

Some donors to Chapin’s charities said they were disappointed to discover his high compensation.

“I just got irritated as hell,” said Michael J. Feeko Sr., 77, a Korean War veteran who lives in Port Crane, N.Y., and volunteers with veterans groups. “The part that galls me is the fact that he’ll sit back and draw this money and other people are giving their time.”

Help Hospitalized Veterans has spent some of its donations in the real estate market. The charity purchased a condominium unit in Fairfax County in May 2006 for $444,600, according to property records reviewed by The Post. Chapin said the charity purchased the Falls Church apartment because of his frequent travel to Washington.

The charity also purchased at least nine properties in the past decade in California, where the group has its headquarters, records reviewed by The Post show.

The office of California Attorney General Jerry Brown (D) investigates charities that mismanage their assets, spokesman Gareth Lacy said. Lacy would not say whether Brown’s office is investigating Help Hospitalized Veterans, but he said the head of the charities division would testify at today’s congressional hearing.

The charity has long had ties to Viguerie. In the past fiscal year, Viguerie’s companies received $3.9 million from the charity, according to its filings with the Internal Revenue Service.

Viguerie has been asked to testify at the hearing. Reached at his office in Manassas this week, an assistant said Viguerie would not answer questions from a Post reporter, citing a policy against commenting on clients.

Mike Lynch said Viguerie adds “tremendous value” to the charity’s ability to raise money. Lynch added that the charity’s finances have met the fundraising standards of the Better Business Bureau, among others.

Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.

See google.org video hereGoogle: From ‘Don’t Be Evil’ to How to Do Good

By KEVIN J. DELANEY
January 18, 2008; Page B1

In one of the most widely watched efforts in corporate giving in years, Google Inc. unveiled yesterday nearly $30 million in new grants and investments, outlining how it will focus a massive philanthropic endeavor that erases the usual boundaries between the for-profit and nonprofit worlds.

The first set of major five- to eight-year initiatives it will pursue includes efforts to create systems to help predict and prevent disease pandemics, to empower the poor with information about public services and to create jobs by investing in small- and mid-size businesses in the developing world. They join previously announced initiatives to accelerate the commercialization of plug-in cars and make renewable energy cheaper than coal. The grants and investments announced yesterday are an early wave of Google’s planned efforts in the five focus areas.

Larry Brilliant, executive director of Google.org, talks with Stacey Delo about running the Internet giant’s philanthropic arm.
Valued at about $2 billion, the assets currently set aside for the company’s philanthropic arm, Google.org, make it larger than any in-house corporate foundation in the U.S., according to the Foundation Center, a nonprofit research firm. (Private foundations set up by tycoons such as Microsoft Corp.’s Bill Gates have more assets.)

Just as important, the Mountain View, Calif., Internet company is marshaling both company and foundation resources around the initiatives, which it hopes will provide more impact in tackling some of the world’s biggest problems. Philanthropy experts consider Google to be among the leading edge of donors experimenting with this hybrid for-profit/nonprofit model. Others include eBay Inc. founder Pierre Omidyar’s Omidyar Network, which invests in businesses and makes grants to nonprofits.

Google, which has found enormous success with an unconventional business style and a corporate motto of “Don’t Be Evil,” says it isn’t looking to make money on its philanthropic efforts. But, as a division of the for-profit company rather than a nonprofit offshoot,
Google.org has freedom to invest in and operate businesses, lobby for political causes and issue certain grants that a traditional corporate foundation wouldn’t. Its announcement yesterday includes a $10 million investment in closely held eSolar Inc., which is working on utility-scale solar power.
Google.org also expects to invest directly in businesses in places such as Africa to spur job creation. “We can start new industries,” says Executive Director Larry Brilliant. “I hope we will.”

The money Google.org has awarded to date (http://google.org/projects.html1) remains modest, and its progress so far has been slow compared with its parent company’s breakneck growth in staff and business reach. Some philanthropy experts warn Google that successful businesspeople with high hopes for solving the world’s problems have underestimated those problems’ complexity and have fallen short.

Selected from more than 800 suggestions, the final initiatives show Google’s special interest in projects where it can bring its engineering and information-management prowess to bear. Google staff, many of whom spend 20% of their work time on independent projects, are expected to contribute significantly to
Google.org efforts. The initiatives also exhibit Google’s characteristic penchant for audacious moves to reshape markets — from advertising to small-business financing — others are often more timid in approaching.

Google.org’s big ambitions suggest it could potentially transform the business mix of Google itself — leading the company to become a player in sectors such as energy and finance.

“They’re business and technology people saying we want to find business and technology solutions to problems,” says Mark Kramer, managing director of FSG Social Impact Advisors, a nonprofit philanthropic consulting group.”That hasn’t been done much before.”

The roots of the effort trace to Google’s April 2004 regulatory filing for an initial public offering. In it, company co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page announced plans for a corporate foundation with the goal that “someday this institution may eclipse Google itself in terms of overall world impact by ambitiously applying innovation and significant resources to the largest of the world’s problems.”

To start, the company created a nonprofit corporate foundation with about $90 million in funding. It announced plans to focus on issues related to energy and the environment and global poverty. After discovering in 2005 that its foundation couldn’t easily donate to One Laptop Per Child, a nonprofit initiative to sell low-cost laptops to developing countries, Google began pursuing the hybrid approach with the for-profit structure. Laws prevent corporate foundations from making gifts that might financially benefit their businesses, and the laptop project aimed at increasing Internet access arguably could boost Google’s online advertising revenue.

In February 2006, Google hired as Google.org’s executive director Dr. Brilliant, a former physician who helped direct efforts to eradicate smallpox from India in the 1970s. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he served as a bioterrorism consultant to the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

With Dr. Brilliant’s arrival, Google.org added global health as a third focus area. He and colleagues sought advice from Google staff and leaders in the philanthropy field and made small “learning grants” to nonprofits. But by spring 2007, Dr. Brilliant and his team realized they needed to focus and launched an internal process to select limited initiatives in the environment, poverty and global health areas.

While some Google.org executives championed efforts to toughen energy-efficiency standards, the company’s co-founders urged them to look instead at making renewable energy cheaper. In late November, Google announced that it expected to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in efforts to make renewable electricity cheaper than power from coal-fired plants. In an unusual move, Google said it would spend millions of dollars on research and development and would create a renewable-energy research-and-development group within the company, in addition to grants and investments by
Google.org.

The other major initiatives Google.org will focus on include the program to predict and prevent disease outbreaks and other global threats. That is anchored by a $5 million grant to InSTEDD, a nonprofit created by
Google.org that is applying technology to improve the flow of information between organizations fighting such problems. Google says it believes that better data and systems for analyzing it are critical to identifying disease hot spots. Possible eventual projects for Google include creating simple tests doctors in the developing world could use to diagnose infectious diseases.

As part of the “Inform and Empower to Improve Public Services” initiative, Google is supporting efforts to provide parties in the developing world with information about public services such as education. One beneficiary of a $2 million grant from
Google.org is Pratham (www.pratham.org13), a nonprofit in India that gives reading tests to schoolchildren and publicly releases the data with the goal of improving education standards.

Google.org also aims to “Fuel the Growth of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises” in the developing world. It will try to reduce the transaction costs for outsiders to invest in such businesses, help create funds that buy stakes in the businesses and provide investors with an “exit,” and invest directly and indirectly in such businesses.

Some warn that Google’s unconventional approach risks altering the landscape of industries, putting it in competition with other businesses. Its investment in renewable-energy research and companies, for example, makes Google a potential rival to some oil and coal concerns. Google “is becoming a catalyst for energy innovation, which makes them an invader to the traditional energy industry,” says R. Paul Herman, CEO of HIP Investor, which consults on socially responsible investing, and former strategy director at Omidyar Network.

Such philanthropic activities potentially have repercussions for Google’s core online advertising business, if energy companies cut back on buying Google ads because they viewed it as a rival. Similarly, any government officials unhappy with
Google.org’s efforts could potentially use regulatory or lawmaking powers to take it out on the company.

Dr. Brilliant says the company has considered such risks. “It’s an experiment to have a philanthropically oriented organization that’s part of the [profit and loss] of Google,” he says.

But, coming nearly four years after Google first announced it was devoting 1% of its equity, 1% of annual profit and an unspecified amount of employee time to Google.org, yesterday’s announcement gives much-awaited shape and focus to its activities.

GOOGLE.ORG’S CHOSEN INITIATIVES

The below list includes select grants and investments, including some previously announced. (See a full list.2)
Predict and Prevent
Goal: Fight disease pandemics and other disasters by using technology and bolstering data collection and analysis to identify “hot spots” and enable a rapid response.
Select Grants:
• $5 million to InSTEDD3 nonprofit to improve early detection, preparedness, and response capabilities for global health threats and humanitarian crises.
• $2.5 million to the Global Health and Security Initiative4, established by the Nuclear Threat Initiative to prevent, detect, and respond to biological threats.
* * *
Inform and Empower to Improve Public Services
Goal: Fight poverty and health problems by providing information about public services such as education, health, water and sanitation to empower citizens and communities, providers and policy makers.
Select Grants:
• $2 million to Pratham5, a nonprofit in India which gives reading tests to schoolchildren and publicly releases the data with the goal of improving education standards.
• $765,000 to the Centre for Budget and Policy Studies6, a Bangalore-based analysis group, to create a Budget Information Service for local governments to facilitate better district- and municipal-level level planning in India.
• $660,000 to the Center for Policy Research7 in India to increase the debate and discourse on issues of urban local governance and urban service delivery.
* * *
Fuel the Growth of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises
Goal: Stimulate investment in small- and mid-sized businesses in the developing world in order to create jobs and fight poverty.
Select Grants:
• $4.7 million grant to the nonprofit TechnoServe8, which works to support enterprises, spur job creation, and alleviate poverty.
* * *
Develop Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal (RE<C)
Goal: Make renewable electricity cheaper than power from coal-fired plants
Select Investments:
• $10 million investment in closely held eSolar9 Inc., which is working on utility-scale solar power
• $10 million investment in closely held Makani Power10 Inc., which is working on high altitude wind-power systems.
Comment: Google separately is creating an internal research and development group staffed with engineers working on the problem.
* * *
Accelerate the Commercialization of Plug-In Vehicles (RechargeIT)
Goal: Fight climate change by accelerating the adoption of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and vehicle-to-grid technology.
Select Grants:
• $200,000 to the nonprofit Brookings Institution11 to support a conference in spring 2008 on federal policy to promote plug-in hybrids.
• $200,000 to nonprofit Electric Power Research Institute12 to support plug-in vehicle research and development.
Comment: Google.org launched a $10 million request for investment proposals last year, and will invest amounts ranging from $500,000 to $2 million in selected for-profit companies tackling this area.

Source: Google, WSJ research

RelightNY

Who: Avery Hairston and RelightNY team
Age: 15
What: Founded RelightNY

Avery Hairston, a Freshman at Collegiate School in New York, founded RelightNY and leads a team of 9 high school students on a mission to make a difference. Check out their website, www.relightny.com (full of videos, press releases, information, and more) after you read about the group:

From the Founder:
Many people feel powerless to stop climate change. They wonder, “What can I possibly do to help?” The short answer: Change a light bulb. One thing everyone can do is switch from incandescent bulbs to energy-efficient CFL (compact fluorescent light) bulbs. CFLs last up to 10 times longer than regular bulbs and use less energy to produce the same amount of light. Less energy used means less fossil fuel burned and, subsequently, less carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, slowing the rate of climate change. More practically, less energy used means a lower electricity bill each month—so your wallet benefits too. I, along with a growing Teen Advisory Board, formed the environmental awareness group RelightNY with the hope that we can educate and encourage people to take action and live in ways that protect the earth’s environment by simply switching a light bulb.

What is the mission of RelightNY?
RelightNY’s mission is to educate and inspire people to take action and live in ways that protect the earth’s environment for current and future generations.

How does RelightNY hope to inspire social change?
Supplying low-income housing units with energy-saving CFL bulbs, both helping families to save on utility costs and fighting global warming. Spreading awareness of the benefits of CFL bulbs. Encouraging all New Yorkers to switch to CFL bulbs in their homes.

How does RelightNY benefit the community and the environment?
Education
Through distribution of CFL bulbs to low-income families, awareness of environmental issues spreads and more people understand the intrinsic benefits of using less energy.
Environment
Switching to CFL bulbs reduces the amount of energy we use and the carbon emissions we produce.
Economy
CFL bulbs last up to 10 times longer than standard light bulbs and reduce electric costs.
Empowerment
Everyone can feel proud that they’re contributing to the fight against global warming!

What difference can a CFL make?
If every American swapped in just one bulb for an Energy Star-labeled CFL:
We would collectively save more than $8 billion in energy costs.
We would burn 30 billion fewer pounds of coal.
We would remove 2 million cars worth of greenhouse gas emissions from our atmosphere.

How does RelightNY work?
1. RelightNY raises donations from corporate and individual sponsors.
2. Open Space Institute handles financial responsibilities, including distributing donor receipts for tax deductions.
3. RelightNY buys CFL bulbs at a discounted price.
4. RelightNY works with HELP USA to distribute CFLs to low-income families.
5. CFLs create a brighter tomorrow for families and the environment for years to come.

How do I donate?
Donations can be made out to: OSI/RelightNY, c/o Avery Hairston, 165 East 72nd Street, New York, NY 10021.

Utah Young Humanitarian Award

Who: Chelsea Gould
Age: 18
What: President of Operation Smile Chapter and More…

After working with the HUGS Foundation this past summer in Rochester, NY, we at Believe In Youth have a soft spot for those working toward a similar cause. Not only was Chelsea Gould the President of her local chapter in a similar organization, but she has done much more, earning Utah’s Young Humanitarian Award along the way.

Orem girl named Utah’s Young Humanitarian
BROOKE BARKER – Daily Herald

Chelsea Gould has traveled as far as Kenya and Mexico on humanitarian projects, but she hasn’t forgotten about the children in her own neighborhood.

Gould, an Orem High senior, was recently named as Utah’s Young Humanitarian for 2007 by YouthLINC, a Utah based non-profit organization hoping to instill life-long service in young people.

“I think it was just her dedication to constantly doing service and her motivation,” said Terry Palmer, a local service coordinator for YouthLINC. “She seems to just simply want to serve her community and her world.”

The award includes a $5,000 scholarship, which Gould plans to use this fall at Dixie State College in St. George. One day she hopes to graduate from UVSC in nursing and start her own foundation in Kenya.

“She’s had a dream ever since she was a little girl to go to Africa to help children in orphanages,” said Michelle Gould, her mother.

In 2005, Chelsea traveled to Nairobi, Kenya, with her grandmother, where they spent five weeks working in orphanages, donating clothing, shoes and school supplies, and planting gardens, according to her mother.

“One of the biggest problems I saw when I went there was the orphanages didn’t test the kids for AIDS,” Gould said. “I want to get a nursing degree with that as my focus.”

She hopes to start an organization with her father, Ben Gould, aimed at providing AIDS/HIV testing and antiretroviral therapy to inhibit the spread of HIV for children in orphanages.

She is currently the president of her school’s Operation Smile chapter. The organization provides surgeries for children with cleft palettes, cleft lips, tumors and burns in Third World countries. Last summer, she traveled to Guadalajara, Mexico, to volunteer with the program.

Chelsea Gould has also volunteered for more than a year with Kids on the Move, a nonprofit organization that works with children with disabilities up to age 3.

Holiday Volunteers

Who: Jesse Watson
Age: 15
What: Volunteered on Christmas Day

‘Tis the season of giving, and this young man did his part. Happy Holidays and have a Happy New Year!

ABC Local News with Video
Houstonians volunteer this Christmas day
Tuesday, December 25, 2007 | 4:21 PM
By Mark Garay

HOUSTON — Tis the season of giving right here in Houston. Volunteers served up hot holiday meals at two Salvation Army locations. We visited one of those locations, the Harbor Light Center on North Main.

It began with a prayer and then it led to the plates. Around 100 volunteers fed Houston’s needy Tuesday, powered by the energy and spirit of dedicated volunteers.

“I’ve led such a good life. You have to give back to the community,” said volunteer Tonia Scott. “To be truthful, most of us, we don’t know where we’re going to be tomorrow.”

They came from as far away as Magnolia to play waiter and spend hours helping those less fortunate a little more comfortable.

“I’ve learned to be grateful for everything I have,” said volunteer Jesse Watson. “I know I have presents for Christmas and they don’t.”

Jesse and his 13-year-old half sister, Joanne Sinclair, are learning important lessons about real life.

“To see that these people need help and they don’t have homes,” said Joanne. “To serve them, to have a good Christmas. Because we already have a good Christmas with our family.”

And their mom, Peggy Sinclair, hopes the lessons last a lifetime.

“Christmas, sometimes, we’re always thinking, ‘What about me, what about me’ and we need to put other people first,” she said. “We haven’t opened our presents yet. We came here first and then we’re going to do our thing later.”

More than 100 volunteers served Tuesday, either cooking or serving a hot meal. While the clients fill their stomachs, these giving Houstonians are fullling their own spiritual needs.

“It makes me feel so good and warm,” said volunteer Nancy Wilson. “That’s what Christmas is all about, giving.”

They began preparing for this meal two weeks. In that time, 132 turkeys were cooked.

Canadian Red Cross Young Humanitarian

Who: Breanne England
Age: 25
What: 2007 Canadian Red Cross Young Humanitarian Award

Breanne England has been doing a lot of good for a long time. This story reads like a bio, but hopefully inspires us all to do what we can to make a difference in as many ways as possible. Happy Holidays!

Canadian Red Cross
2007 Young Humanitarian Award

The Canadian Red Cross – New Brunswick Region and McInnis Cooper proudly presents Breanne England as the Young Humanitarian Award 2007 Recipient.

Breanne England is a 25 year old New Brunswick native, currently working and living in Ottawa. After graduating from Kennebecasis Valley High School in 2000, she went on to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies and Sociology from UNBSJ. She has since completed her Masters Degree in Human Security and Peace building from Royal Roads University, as well as a certificate in Refugee Issues from York University. During her time at Royal Roads she completed research on ‘Education Initiatives in Uganda’, ‘Human Security in Rural Villages’ and ‘Civic Literacy, Decentralization and Local Governance’.

In 2003, Breanne traveled to Uganda for the first time along with a small group from her church as part of an orphan sponsorship and girl-child education program. While there, she became impassioned with Africa. In 2005 she returned to Uganda, this time to research peace building synergies in conflict-ridden Northern Uganda. This was followed by time living in the remote village of Kyabirukwa on her own, teaching secondary school girls. She also completed field research for her major research project on human security. Breanne is also part of a three-person team that is currently sponsoring 5 students in the village of Kyabirukwa, with the aim of helping these children complete primary and secondary school.

Locally, Breanne has been involved with the Tomorrow Team, a youth program associated with St. Augustine’s Anglican Church. She not only led the junior and senior youth, but also organized summer camps and participated in many church activities. In 2002 she spent a summer counselling children at Camp Medley, in Gagetown, NB. She has also been actively involved with the Canadian Red Cross as a Disaster Management Instructor, Responder and briefly as a Branch Counsel Representative. In the past few years, Bre has been involved in refugee and immigration work in Saint John.

Breanne is not only adventurous, but energetic, and brings this to the table when interacting with children in the many programs she has volunteered with. She is credited with creating inventive programs and with her ability to get people involved with the many projects she takes on.

Her life mantra is: “Strength to dream, Courage to act, Faith to endure…”

Video Interview with FORGE Founder

Who: Kjerstin Erickson
Age: 24
What: Founder and CEO of FORGE

Kjerstin Erickson founded FORGE at age 20 while studying at Stanford University. This week we have a video interview with Kjerstin by Global X courtesy of Social Edge. Enjoy.

“She is 24 years old. She is a student at Stanford. And in her spare time, she works in three refugee camps in Zambia, helping 60,000 refugees build better lives. This is Kjerstin Erickson’s amazing story, as told to Global X.” -Social Edge

Domain Mixup

Sorry to all that have tried to get to the Believe In Youth website through the .net domain this week.  We had a bit of a mixup with the domain names, but all is set now.  You can now get to Believe In Youth through www.believeinyouth.com, www.believeinyouth.net, or believeinyouth.wordpress.com. Thanks! 

I, Lender

Who: Matt Flannery
Age: 30
What: Founded Kiva, www.kiva.org

If you haven’t heard of Kiva yet, check it out. It is an amazing idea that has had great follow through. Below is an interview with co-founder Matt Flannery from Smithsonian Magazine.

I, Lender
Software engineer Matt Flannery pioneers Internet microloans to the world’s poor

By Amy Crawford
Smithsonian magazine, October 2007

Matt Flannery, 30, co-founded the non-profit Kiva.org, a microlending site, in 2004. Kiva operates on a people-to-people model, allowing private individuals to make loans to borrowers seeking to establish small businesses in developing countries.

How does Kiva work?

Kiva connects individual lenders from the developed world to individual borrowers in the developing world. We work with local microfinance institutions that post the loan applications they get on the Internet. Kiva raises debt capital via the Internet from thousands of lenders in the United States and Europe. The partner institutions sort and administer loans, but our lenders actually fund them.

How did you get this idea?

My wife [Jessica, co-founder of Kiva] was consulting in microfinance in East Africa, and I went along on a trip with her. We had the idea together. I thought it would be interesting to give people the chance to participate as partners, not just donors, with [small] businesses in Africa. I’ve always been interested in ideas about poverty. I’ve been sponsoring children through my church my whole life. It was part of my upbringing. What we’re doing now is an extension of that personal history.

Why loans rather than donations?

Lending to somebody sends the message that you’re treating them as an equal, someone who can participate with you in a business relationship. It’s a really dignified way to interact with people.

What challenges did you have to overcome as you were setting up Kiva?

We started Kiva without any funding, and whenever you do something like that, it’s hard to prepare for growth. Without a lot of start-up capital, you have to bootstrap your way at every step. At one point, we were getting thousands of users, and we had a $20 Web-hosting plan on a shared server, so our Web site was crashing. We had to figure out in one weekend how to transfer the site from that commercial hosting plan.

How do you make sure the loans are not misused?

We’re as transparent as possible. When you loan on the Web site, you get to choose whom you loan to—a goat-herding business, a retail business, a fruit stand. Most of the time, you hear back about what happened [through the Web site]. We allow the lenders to ask questions and the partners to report. This summer we sent about 30 volunteers—we call them Kiva fellows—to witness Kiva’s impact firsthand, and they’re writing about it on the Web site. Just about every minute, there’s a new journal entry.

So far, Kiva has an excellent repayment record. How do you manage that?

Repayment rates in the microfinance industry are much higher than for U.S. domestic loan lending. That’s because microfinance institutions are lending to people for whom getting a loan is their only shot at anything. If you’re given a sixty-dollar loan, your chance of getting another loan is contingent on you paying that back.

You’re also a lender on Kiva. Who are some of the people you’ve lent to personally?

I usually lend to Eastern Europeans—a food market in Azerbaijan, a clothing store in Ukraine. Most of my portfolio is people from Azerbaijan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Bulgaria, places like that, because they are the least popular borrowers on the site, and they often get overlooked by our lenders.

I hear your Iraqi borrowers are especially popular with Americans. How Come?

Curiosity. [People think,] “I can really send my money to someone in Iraq? I can really participate in a place that’s so chaotic? I wonder what will happen? I wonder if it will work out? I want to follow this story.” There are probably a lot of people who want to send another message to the Iraqis, that America’s not all about invading their country, we’re about building it up as well.

A former editorial assistant at Smithsonian, Amy Crawford is a student at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

Brower Youth Awards Winner

Who: Rachel Barge
Age: 21
What: Co-created The Green Initiative Fund at Cal

Rachel was the winner of a 2007 Brower Youth Award, honoring youth leadership in conservation, preservation, and restoration. Check out her bio below, and her video along with more from the Brower Youth Awards.

Rachel’s Biography:

Rachel was an avid contributor to various environmental initiatives at the University of California, Berkeley beginning in her freshman year. She realized that one underlying factor preventing her campus from becoming more sustainable was a lack of funding for necessary projects. To overcome this challenge, Rachel co-created The Green Initiative Fund, a student fee referendum passed by the students at Berkeley. The Green Initiative Fund successfully secures more than $2 million over ten years – $200,000 annually – for sustainability projects on campus, including clean energy, sustainable transportation, improved energy efficiency, water conservation, “green” internships, and improved recycling and composting programs. The Green Initiative Fund essentially tripled the amount of sustainability funding available at UC Berkeley and raised awareness about sustainability issues at the University. Rachel also founded The Sustainability Team (Steam), a student internship program now consisting of 60 members dedicated to creating, implementing and leading a variety of projects aimed at establishing sustainable practices. The Sustainability Team implemented the first recycling program in student union buildings and founded the first organic, local, student-run cooperative produce stand on campus. Check out the video here.