Campaign: Youth Leadership Workshop on Innovative Creative and Innovative Thinking – Liberia

Globally,
civil wars have stripped many young people in developing nations of their
childhood and sometimes their humanity. 
Conditioned by what they witnessed or by direct involvement as
conscripted child soldiers, many still resort to violence as the preferred means
of resolving conflict and solving problems. 
During peacetime, they are easily persuaded to participate in riots and public
protests over the lack of jobs or food or education.  A prime example is Liberia,
a tiny West African nation that sustained total destruction of its
infrastructure while civil war raged from 1989 to 2003.  The most devastating losses however were the
hopes and dreams of its youth.  Today some
young Liberians are graduating from college with little chance of finding
conventional employment.  The national rate
of underemployment/unemployment hovers around 85%.   Many pessimistically believe that their true
destiny is to be a vendor in the already saturated open-air markets.   Such a narrow view can only be broadened by
introducing creative thinking
Our
crowdfunding project is a revolutionary, invitation-only international youth
leadership workshop, to be held on September 13 and
14, 2013 in ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Monrovia, Liberia. It will:
  • Engage and inspire young Liberians to develop their own
    grassroots innovative projects that address problems they would like to
    solve.
  • Provide a collaborative and supportive space where our
    young participants can re-light their flame of boundless imagination and
    creative spirit that was snuffed out by war and suppressive institutions.
  • Guide our young participants to channel their energy
    into creative projects that can effect positive change in their lives and
    the people around them.
  • Assist Liberia’s future leaders, innovators, and educators
    to re-discover their potential and how they can make a difference.

 ECC Youth Group giving a message of hope for their peers in Liberia
The
workshop will begin with stories of real-life role models—young African boys
and girls who broke free of the chains of hopelessness and almost miraculously created
innovative projects with little or no
resources. These amazing youth include:
  • William Kawkwamba of Malawi, whose
    story is told in his book “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.” In 2001, when only 14
    years old, he built his first windmill to generate electricity for his house, using his inborn talent, an English-language text
    book, and items from a local scrap yard. 
    He did this despite a deadly famine that forced him to drop out of
    school. His second, more powerful windmill was built to help irrigate his
    family’s maize crops.
  • Duro-AinaAdebola, Akindele Abiola and Faleke Oluwatoyin, and Bello Eniola, four teenage
    girls from Nigeria who developed a process using human urine—an abundant and
    renewable resource—to power a generator with an initial investment of $64. They
    also found a way to eliminate the smell of “pee” to alleviate the concerns of
    working with a form of human waste.
  • KelvinDoe of Sierra Leone, who pulled electronic parts from trash dumps to make his
    own battery and generator.  He later created
    his own radio station and took the name “DJ Focus” due to his belief that focus
    is necessary to develop projects. He was invited to MIT as one of the youngest
    visiting inventors after his story was shared on YouTube.
Day
1: Our participants will analyze and discuss each of these inspirational
stories, reviewing the resources used and how projects were implemented. They will also
hear from Liberian social innovators like Alfred Sirleaf, who have successfully launched grassroots
initiatives. After exposure to these examples of
innovation, they will be encouraged to note down in sketches or words what resources
they can access for developing their own projects and addressing the problems
they hope to solve.
Day
2: UDS will provide an open lab environment where our budding inventors can
incubate their ideas, to be birthed into viable projects. They will be
encouraged to work independently and in groups to conduct experiments using the
resources they gathered to test their ideas. Additionally, they will hear about
opportunities to develop and grow their project from our Liberian partners:
  • Accountability Lab will introduce
    their Accountapreneurship Funds which provides small grants to “harness the
    creativity of citizens to solve problems in their own communities.”
  • The Business Start-up Center at the
    University of Liberia’s main campus, will share their services that “stimulate and
    develop young and ambitious entrepreneurs through Training, business plan
    competitions and facilitates access to finance as a way of promoting SME development
    and growth in Liberia.”
Also,
UDS will award seed money for the top two collaborative project ideas developed
by our young visionaries, who are ready to address the social or economic
problems within their communities. The best two projects will be determined by
the votes of all participants.
This
is a $2,500 project that will provide (click here to see concept proposal):
  • Food and transportation for all participants 
  • A one-night stay for the 8 attendees from the rural
    areas
  • Workshop materials
  • Two $200 seed grants
  • Other logistical costs
Your
pledge in supporting this project will aid and encourage our emerging youth
leaders to explore, develop and implement their creative and innovative ideas
that will help heal and rebuild their nation. No amount is too small to be part
of the journey that these young people will take in
reclaiming the gift they were born with and to give them the chance to become
contributing members of their communities and the world.
Listen to what Josh Tabla of the ECC Youth Group has to say about supporting this workshop.
We
value your involvement in this project and want to appreciate your pledge as
follows:
  • Pledge $5 or more: the Liberian
    youth will be forever gratefu

  • Pledge $20 or more:
o  
The Liberian youth will joyfully sing your name out loud;
o  
Your name will be listed on the Uniting Distant Stars sponsorship page for this
workshop as a supporter.
  • Pledge $50 or more:
o  
The youth of Liberia will repeatedly
chant your name while dancing in jubilation
o  
Your name will be listed on the
Uniting Distant Stars sponsorship page for this workshop as a supporter and
included on the 2014 annual report.
  • Pledge $100 of more:
o  
The Liberian youth will consider you
as their global auntie and uncle
o  
Your name will be listed on the
Uniting Distant Stars sponsorship page for this workshop, included on the 2014 annual
report, and added to the “banner of hope” that will be displayed during
this two-day workshop.
Please pledge by check or PayPal by
following the instructions below.
Checks: Make out the checks to ECC
and put UDS Workshop on the memo Line and send to
Uniting
Distant Stars
c/o
Heather Cannon-Winkelman
4010
Lawndale LN N
Plymouth,
MN 55466
*PayPal: Go to www.ebenezercommunitychurch.com
and scroll down to Contact Us box on the left hand side. Select Uniting Distant
Stars
in the Donation Category dropdown menu and then click the PayPal button
(see image below).
 

*PayPal
charges a 2.2% plus $0.30 per transaction fee that will be deducted from your
donation.
 Your generous pledge is tax
deductible through our fiscal sponsor Ebenezer Community Church in Brooklyn Park,
Minnesota.

Uniting Distant Stars: The Project

It is amazing how a philosophy can evolve into an organization and, ultimately, an international project. Uniting Distant Stars started as a blog in 2009, reflecting on what we share as a human family no matter where we live in this world. Three years later Uniting Distant Stars (UDS) emerged as an organization focused on educational needs in Liberia, West Africa. Now in 2013, we are about to embark on a  project in the works since August 2012. It is truly symbolic of UDS’s world view. On September 13 and 14 project designers in Liberia and Minnesota will gather in Monrovia, Liberia, to implement a two-day Youth Leadership Workshop on Creative and Innovative Thinking.

The people behind this project include Elijah Wreh and Gradieh Wreh, who are both from Liberia and two of the four workshop facilitators. They have inspired involvement of their youth group members in social action and supported by the Ebenezer Community Church in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, who is also our fiscal sponsor. They look forward to similarly motivating their age cohort back home in Liberia. Kelvin Fomba is the third facilitator and UDS co-founder and partner, and is based in Liberia. He has a long history of working with youth, teaching them the skills of auto mechanics and professional driving. Another critical member of the team is Reverend Elijah Wreh Sr. in Liberia, who will help recruit participants and follow up with them after the workshop has ended. He is currently building his own ministry in Liberia to support the emotional and spiritual needs of his people. And finally there is yours truly, Heather Cannon-Winkelman, who developed the UDS concept after reading “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind,” a book about William Kamkwamba from Malawi.

The Minnesota team has been talking about UDS with our social and professional networks for several months and are energized by the positive response we have received. Many expressed interest in becoming part of
this. Their enthusiasm motivated us to put together a crowdfunding (i.e. fundraising) campaign beginning mid-July. This post spotlights the people who “nudged” us to broaden our vision into an international initiative.

First, we need to pause and recognize Nita Schroeder for planting the seed for a crowdfunding
initiative. I first met her in
2010 when she co-facilitated a job transition group at WomenVenture in St. Paul, Minnesota, that I attended while seeking
employment after returning from a year in Liberia. She was the first to validate our project’s potential with her generous pledge in January 2013. I had reservations about the idea of crowdfunding until she pulled out some
money and urged me to start the campaign. Though it took a
while to figure out the “how,” Nita, we are finally getting it done!

Next there is John Trepp, my mentor from Mentor Planet. He has advised and guided me since November 2012 in developing UDS into an organization. He also has helped analyze the scope of this and other projects, and how we can best convey our message. He too has been a source of encouragement, especially about using video to promote our projects, a key to successful crowdfunding campaigns.

The spotlight now turns to Liberia. The result of my May 2013 post “Accountability from the bottom up” was the development of a collaborative international partnership. Blair Glencorse and Lawrence Yealue of Accountability Lab (Lab) in Liberia were the first to recognize the benefits of partnering with us. Blair then connected us with William Dennis at the Business Start-up Center (BSC) at the University of Liberia. William was instrumental in helping us secure the BSC lab as our venue for the September 13 workshop. Also, Lawrence has four potential Lab “Accountapreneurs” from Bomi County, one of the targeted rural areas for this event, who will participate in our workshop.

In the midst of this groundswell of support, I received an email from Pastor Stephen Tour of World Harvest Church in Liberia, offering his edifice as the site of our youth workshop. His was the church I attended while living in Liberia in 2009. It had the only internet cafe in our community of New Georgia Estate. Since we already had our site, we included two members of his thriving youth department as UDS participants.

Switching back to Minnesota, I met with Wokie Weah, the Executive Director of Youthprise and a Liberian. I had volunteered in 2009 with her sister Juanita Ramirez’s organization, Society for Women in Africa and AIDS in Liberia. Juanita had recommended that I talk with Wokie about the concept of UDS since our work had similar themes. Youthprise is a Minnesota-based organization that “will lead the nation in accelerating leadership and innovation beyond the classroom.”

After only a few moments of talking about our workshop and partnership with the Lab, Wokie strongly recommended we do a crowdfunding campaign and walked me across the hall to meet Ed Irwin and Maddy Wegner with youthrive, another Minnesota-based non-profit that engages “young people with adults in strengthening leadership and peace-building skills”. Both were excited about the UDS project and wanted to learn more about Accountability Lab. Ed agreed to help us film
our crowdfunding video. In return we will facilitate a connection between Liberia and Minnesotan youth. When we met, both were energized by their recent interaction with a Liberian star, Leymah Gbowee, 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, who was in Minnesota in April 2013 as part of the PeaceJam Youth Leadership Conference.

Just like that, more distant stars–Youthprise, youthrive and Accountability Lab–united to illuminate a path for youth in Liberia and Minnesota to pursue their dreams.

The last week in June, Gradieh and I did our first of two video shoots for our UDS crowdfunding campaign. We completed the final filming on Monday, July 1, 2013. The video will be ready to launch in mid-July. Ed from youthrive was a great help for us communicating our message from our passion within and not from a script. 

Gradieh and I at the end of our first video shoot on Wednesday June 26. 2012. Photo by Edwin Irwin

It was Ed who suggested calling this project “Uniting Distant Stars,” a brilliant, unifying idea, since our belief is that everyone is a star and has something to contribute to make this a better world. Whether it is our knowledge, skill, desire to help others, or money to give, we are distant stars uniting for a better global community. It is not about what we have, but what we can give of ourselves to change this world.

After each take, Gradieh and I would catch our breath and prepare for the next one. Photo by Edwin Irwin

When we launch our campaign in July, we will provide full details abour how you can get involved. For now, we will leave you with this: UDS is not about teaching our youth a skill, but rather to provide a supportive space where they can reignite their flame of boundless imagination and creative spirit that was snuffed out by war and oppressive institutions. We expect our young participants to gain inspiration from the video stories about their African peers who developed
socially innovative ideas with little to nothing in resources. These initiatives positively changed their lives and people all around the world, including me! We think that you will want to join us in this wonder-filled experiment. How can You be a source of inspiration to our global youth in making this a better world?