Bikes in Africa: The far away foreigners

How to Start a Movement...

How to get people moving...leadership in our society today.

Spaghetti Safari for Student Sponsorships

Commencing 12th October in Palermo, Sicily.

YouthCom is biking our way across Italy to raise money for Kenyan student sponsorships! Our aim is to ride 1000km in 3 weeks from the south to as far north as our legs will take us. We want you to follow the journey!

You can support our cause by:

1. Cheering us on Facebook

2. Donating 10 cents per kilometre we ride

3. Sponsoring a students through YouthCom.

Contact: a.koutouleas@gmail.com or benjamin.robotham@gmail.com for more details

Southern Cross Students Need Your Sponsorship...

YouthCom. and the Marafiki Community have been long-distance friends for a year now. And sometimes we need to reach out and give our friends a helping hand.

Now is the time we need your help.

The Southern Cross Academy officially opened in May 2010. It's name stems from the Australian volunteer who raised the funds to build the school. It now has almost 300 internally displaced students (IDP's) enrolled and has been a monumental development in this impoverished community. Before the establishment of this school, the children living within the IDP-camps had no access to education and in some case had not been in a formal education setting for over 2 years. The Southern Cross Academy has bridged this gap and now offer a full range of educational initiative including a water project and school library.However, the school is in desperate need for student sponsorship.

Student sponsorship is as little as $7 per month per student. This amount provides school supplies, morning tea and lunch for students, teachers salaries,teaching aids and the payment of fees required for standard examinations in order to ensure a free education for the children of the surrounding IDP camps.

Currently YouthCom has collected 10 IDP students sponsorships for a 6 month period. But we need your help to get more.

We ask you to;

1) Sponsor a student
2) Spread the word. Tell your mum, tell your best friends, tell your hairdressers, tell your butchers, or just tell anyone who will listen,about the Southern Cross Academy.
3) Ask them to get on board and contact youthcomaustralia@gmail.com

We are asking for all the sponsorships we can handle and more!

Right now, a little bit of help from our friends is all we need.

For more information on Marafiki and The Southern Cross Academy visit: http://marafikicommunity.org/

Toys From Trash

The world as we know it, is changing. In many ways we have no real choice in the matter. But for a large part we can act as active citizens of the planet and take time to make better use of the materials we still have around us, in a more sustainable fashion. Lets take example from these young Kenyans.These boys are not in a position to purchase toys the way in which western children can. So instead have taken old plastic bags, newspapers and sisal string to make a soccer ball. The act of creating such an item out of nothing more than landfill is not only educational and sustainable but also far more rewarding than buying a poorly made,borderline disposable toy off a global-bully's shop shelf. If only people in the western world could take a lesson from those less fortunate and make do with what they have...Child's play isn't it?



For more "Toys from Trash" ideas and instructions visit:
http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/toys.html

The Girl Effect...

So here we are 2011, 4 years away from our Millennium Development Goals deadline to:

1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

2: Achieve universal primary education

3: Promote gender equality and empower women

4: Reduce child mortality rate

5: Improve maternal health

6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases

7: Ensure environmental sustainability

8: Develop a global partnership for development

Ambitious? Yes. Impossible...No. In fact, 4 out of 8 of the goals can be achieved via a very simple shift in paradigms. A small change in our social focal lens can improve the way foreign aid is managed and allocated. A re-jig in past acts of community development is critical.And it all starts with investing in women.

There has been an exciting buzz around the notion of "the girl effect". Studies have shown that of every dollar we invest in women living within poverty stricken areas, 90 cents will go towards her family and local community. Of that same dollar, men will invest a measly 30-40 cents. Given that women are typically (still) earning no more than 75% of the typical male wage, a serious discrepancy is evident.

Whilst already being a fairly strong advocate of women (as a whole), I was still overwhelmingly startled by this fact. What makes a woman care more about the future of her family and community? Is there some kind of innate biological investment which dictates the proceeding financial investment? Darwinism would suggest this is the case. But surely we have come a long way down that anthropological path, since primordial males left the cave and offspring for the women to tend to? Seemingly, there is more than trace elements leftover of female evolutionary compassion towards family and community.

Upon second glance, it seems that lots of not-for-profit organisations are clued up on this. And no surprises what ratio these said organisations are founded and or run primarily by women. There are countless initiatives and advocating campaigns from the usual do-gooding culprits such as Care Australia, Global Giving,Women Aid and so on. But what really struck me as odd was when comsumersitic giant Coca Cola also jumped on the proverbial band wagon, embracing this ideal with their campaign "5 by 2020". This crusade is set out to empower 5 million women by 2020 (as the title would suggest). However they intend to achieve this alleged " empowerment" by providing business opportunities to women in developing nations. One guess what business these opportunities exist within.That's right...the soft-drink business...more specifically, the Coca Cola business. So basically these corporate monkeys are encouraging women to work at advertising an obesity-causing- addictive product, high in fructose corn syrup and caffeine to children and families alike. While being a world leader in adding millions of tons of plastic into landfill. So in a nutshell, women (who wouldn't otherwise be working) will now be given the ability to act in the same ill-advised, obtuse, greedy and prolific way men have been behaving since the beginning of the industrial revolution.Something is not quite right here.

Now I know what you are thinking, because initially I was thinking the very same thought... don't be so cynical...this could be a good thing right? They are offering something admirable to women who would otherwise not have the right or access to employment.They are essentially providing an income for families who would be living below the poverty line. But let's not forget the context of those aforementioned millennium goals. Nowhere amongst these specific aims does it read:" increase productivity of Coca Cola sales" or "improve likability of the Coca Cola brand" and finally "bring Coca Cola to a country not yet stocking the products". Lets face it, asides from sprucing up the dusty corporate responsibility portfolio, these are the set out hopes for the "5 by 2020" project.No adorned marketing team or thought-provoking back-up music is going to change this. For all those out there actually supporting the true purpose of "The Girl Effect"...keep up the good work. For those who are using it as a blatantly obvious marketing tool for your malevolent, humanity-destroying-brand...we can see right through you.

For more information of "The Girl Effect" check out:

http://www.girleffect.org/question

Successful Trotting!

Our 2010 Too Hot Too Trot Fundraiser was a HUGE Success!!!
It was a rainy Melbourne Cup Day at My Aeon, yet the charitable spirits of almost 50 YouthCom supporters were not dampened.Despite the BBQ precariously placed under a not-so waterproof awning, our chef did an exceptional job sizzling those sangas. Guests chilled out in the beer garden while the very funky,underground tunes of IV Dimension pumped through the speakers. Drinks were a plenty and marvellously poured by Steven (Owner & Bar Man Extrodnaire). Thank you to all those who attended and helped raise just under $1000 for the Neema Trust Boys Orphanage. A special thank you to Rick Inserra and the Djs of IV Dimension, Steven Sakkas for the venue, Angelo Koutouleas-our BBQer, Daniella and the Cannavo's for salads, trailer and support, Yasmin Mohammed for being a bouncer and collecting the cash and the Pigdon Street house for their BBQ! Your support was warmly recieved!