The Affero Blog
Unaccompanied Minors pt 2
By Steven McLaughlin in News
For the last two weeks I have struggled to put pen to paper (or to tap out my thoughts on a keyboard) regarding how I would wrap up my two-part piece on child soldiers. There seems to be so much information on this subject alone that I felt there was no way I am going to do it any justice.
On top of this I recently started a new job at work that has been eating up my free time like the Dilophosaurus chewed up Wayne Knight in Jurassic Park. That isn’t to say I don’t love my new job, on the contrary I do, however my writing has suffered in the past two weeks and been pushed to the back burner, and for that I apologize.
The third reason that I have struggled to finish this piece is that as a writer I tend to lean heavily towards being a comedy writer, and the fact of the matter is, the more I read and researched the dilemma of child soldiers, the less and less I found ways to make any sort of light hearted remarks regarding the issue. Face it; even the Dilophosaurus joke in the last paragraph was a bit of a stretch.
For these reasons among others I decided that I could not finish this piece on my own. Fortunately my friend (and co-affangelist) Mr. Rob Harvey pointed me in the direction of one Mr. Marcus Young. Marcus Young not only came to my rescue in helping me finish this piece, but he taught me more about the experiences of a child soldier than any book or article possibly could. Marcus and I had a great at length conversation regarding a group he has worked with for several years called Project AK-47.
Before I spout off about what Project Ak-47 is doing I have to precede it by saying that at the center of Marcus’ story of how he came to be involved with rescuing children from places such as Mexico, Burma and the Philippines is a man who very much so leans on Jesus in his life.
In short Project AK47 reaches into the depths of poverty and pulls out kids who weren’t given a fair first shot at having a childhood. Sure we could go back and forth and debate what it means to have a childhood, we could discuss how my Western idea of childhood differs from a world view of childhood, or even argue that there’s no such thing as a world view of child hood. We could do all that until we’re blue in the face, but the fact will still remain that kids as young as 3 and 4 are conscripted by their governments into militias. They start out as “go fers” running menial errands here and there, during this time they sometimes have food, clothing and shelter provided for them. Around the ages of 9 and 10 they start training the children in basic combat, and then at about 12 years old they join the ranks of other soldiers. At 12 they are physically large enough to carry the light, deadly and relatively cheap weapon that is an AK-47. The average time these children spend in some sort of paramilitary role on average is 7 years.
So yes, we could argue about what it means to “have” a childhood, but I’m willing to bet there are very few people that would wish the above paragraph on any child. What project Ak-47 does is to step in when given the chance and provide these kids with the food, clothing and shelter they need, but with the relationships they as children yearn for as well. The over arching idea behind Project AK-47 is that the children in these situations have two chances in life; to be a kid for 7 years or to be a killer for 7 years. A(a) kid (k)for (4) 7 or a(a) killer(k) for (4) 7. AK-47.
I think that if I were a sensationalistic writer I would reprint the parts of mine and Marcus’ conversation that shocked me the most, the parts that broke my heart and the parts that spurred me on. But that’s not my writing style and I don’t want to scare anyone into finding out more about this mission of Project AK-47. So here are my suggestions if you want to find out more or get involved with alleviating this darkness from our world.
1) Sign up for Affero (yeah, I went there.) Seriously though, sign up and vote for child soldiers to get your gift for the month. It can be that easy.
2) Go to Project AK 47′s website and get involved there. Read about their dog tag campaign. Their goal is to get 100,000 dog tags of child soldiers out to people to raise awareness of just how many children are in the bondage of armies, militias and other various groups. While you’re there look around and learn more about Project AK-47
3) Go to a library and type child soldiers into a search bar on the computer. The vast array of books and articles on the subject can lead to some great conversations and breakthroughs on this subject if you take the time to read them.
That’s it for me for the week. Thanks for your recent patience and I promise more regularity in the future when it comes to this column.
Peace,
Steve
Affero Manifesto
By Rob Harvey in News
What is Affero? Affero is a Latin word meaning “to bring, give, impart, turn over”. The aim of The Affero Project is to activate a global tribe working against poverty and injustice. We seek to bring about change by aggregating small donations and mobilizing these resources to worthwhile causes around world. Our members understand that new technology enables new kinds of gathering together and getting things done. And Affero is architecting a platform of participation where members log on, learn about causes and categories, share their interests with friends, and collaborate towards collective action. How would you like to change the world? Would you like to fight human trafficking? Maybe help provide medical relief to a third world country reeling from a recent natural disaster? Or made help the homeless in the inner city. At Affero, you choose your cause.
There is this thing called the internet. Last week I spent a day with our very own Marc Krejci as he outlined the next level of AfferoProject.com. You’re gonna love it. Marc really gets it. He’s all about the democratization of discovery, learning and participation. Our new site will match members with meaningful opportunities to connect and make it easy to share with others. He is wire-framing our future site to include verticals like adventure travel or athletics where your passions will overlap with purpose and provide space for us all to collaborate with each other. I can’t wait for you to see it!
For instance, maybe you’d like to go with us to Uganda next time and trek through the terrain on a four-wheeler, then go white water rafting before checking out a local orphanage or hospital. This adventure learning allows you to experience first hand the life-changing work going on there. Perhaps you will dig Team Affero because you would like to run a marathon like Josh Mitchell and get sponsors to cover each mile you run, raising awareness and funds for a specific charity or cause. The future site that we’re planning will foster many more ways to engage missions of mercy, compassion, justice and empowerment. How cool is that?
Mr. Digital, Marc
Josh and Christy
The word of mouse. Many people born before the 1980‘s are still catching on to how much social media has transformed the way we live and how organizations doing great work need to communicate with their target audience. The savvy ones in the business world have certainly caught on and are navigating the marketplace of ideas with their message and competing effectively for mindshare of those surfing on the web. Erik Qualman and others have documented how platforms like facebook, YouTube and twitter are fundamentally changing the way business and people behave. These social utilities connect hundreds of millions of people to each other via instant communication. But to what end? Why not harness the power of this connectivity to help provide clean water to those in need? Or address extreme poverty and hunger?
New technology enables new kinds of social action. As Clay Shirky and others have noted, when we change the way ideas spread, we change society. Think about how revolutionary the printing press was! Fact is, online word of mouth is powerful for influencing peer groups. Everyone is a media outlet. Will you use this exchange to help the orphan? To help bring clean water to where it is desperately needed?
Steve
Power to the people. At Affero, “You Give. You Vote. You Decide.” We operate essentially like donor-advised fund where you decide how much you want to give each month and vote which category or cause gets funded. To some degree we are structural minimalists like Steve Moore describes in one of his insightful vlogs at The Mission Exchange. This is especially true here in our beta launch. Our categories aren’t unpacked with organizations, yet. We deliberately resisted the development of systems and policies because we want to empower grassroots activity. We don’t want to control the process but provide our influence by empowering members, serving them and resourcing them. We aim to accelerate positive change through continuous cross pollination of ideas and opportunities beyond the organizational boundaries often associated with agencies doing the great field work themselves.
A generosity movement. Recently I was on the phone with Jonathan Mitchell who is doing some creative and impactful work with a similar process, spotlighting great works worthy of support. Through Ministry Spotlight, he aims to facilitate discussion, debate and partnership. His goal is similar to Affero’s in that he desires is to work alongside causes and help them enter the conversation going on every day online. We recognize that many times the most effective organizations doing great work in the field are small and lack the resources or inclination to market themselves. We know that too often donations are given in reactive, short term and harmful ways. We aim to change that.
Jonathan
What impressed me about Jonathan’s work is that he and his team are eager to collaborate without reinventing any wheel. And they are specifically seeking out economic development organizations that emphasize dignity over dependency. They are committed to empowering indigenous leadership and perpetuating indigenous funding for sustainability. This is hard work. Because, as noted by Steve Corbett & Brian Fikkert, relief is easier than development.
I am encouraged by a growing community, committed to bringing hope and empowering people all over the world. This movement is positioned to be viral friendly, spending itself so that others become advocators and activators, givers and sharers. Will you run with these pacesetters? Will you decide today how much you can give to be a change driver ? Are you in?
Unaccompanied Minors part 1
By Steven McLaughlin in News
My challenge at the Affero project is to be able to help educate some of our readers on the different causes we want to help out with. My general knowledge on the subjects is/was just that, general. Since I began writing on this blog I have been blown away by how deep and dark some of these problems are that we want to help with. While we tend to be a light hearted group of people, these causes can leave one heavy hearted after enough time is spent learning and researching them. I believe for myself no other subject has moved me, changed me and disturbed me quite as much as the subject of child soldiers. Some numbers estimate that currently over 300,00 children under the age of 17 are forced into armed conflicts and UNICEF estimates that in the past decade 2 million such children have died in these conflicts, millions more have been left as refugees, disabled or orphaned.
Charles London’s “One Day the Soldiers Came” is an in depth view into the world of refugee children that I have thoroughly enjoyed. There have been times where I felt I just could not read any further, didn’t want to read any further, or was embarrassed at my own ignorance to the subject as a whole. Overall it’s been a great resource to finding out more about how refugee children end up as mass murdering soldiers.
One quote in particular from the beginning of the book has stood out to me, London says, “They’ve fought in different armies and come from different parts of the country. Fate has thrown them into this center together, turned them into a group, labeled child soldiers or ex-combatants or in some documents “youth who participate in conflict.” The labels tell you little. In the language of humanitarian aid, there are many categories for children; Street children, Internally Displaced children, Child Soldiers, Child Heads of Household, Unaccompanied Minors, Children in Conflict with the Law, Children Affected by HIV, Children Accused of Sorcery. Categorization is a way of processing children for targeted assistance in crisis situations.” I think this stuck in my head for so long because it communicates how wide and varied the experiences of child soldiers are and how different societies view them in different contexts.
One of the most difficult aspects for me to understand as I was researching this is that the idea of childhood is significantly relative to different cultures. It seems the more a culture values education, the more that society develops a set of rules to protect children. While the correlation of childhood and education may seem to be obvious to some, I think it only feels that way because of an ingrained western cultural standard. When I think collectively about every child I’ve ever known personally, from my own childhood on, I met almost all of them through an education system of some sort, whether it was through my own school or school’s I volunteered at or taught at. In our society education and childhood go hand in hand like facebook and birthday wishes.
My guess is that many of you reading this know a child. I know it’s a stretch to make that assumption, but I’m going to go ahead and exercise my creative judgment here and go with that assumption. Being a teacher I have gotten to know quite a few kids in the short time I have been in the education system, and I have to say that I can’t imagine any of them are ready to face war. I don’t know that anyone ever really is adequately prepared to give their life for some idea of patriotism or what is right versus what is wrong in some political argument that largely doesn’t concern their best interests. But this is what happens every day throughout the world in countries and territories that may take more than one attempt for you to pronounce the name of the land correctly. Our hope at Affero is that we can help out in some way by giving our combined efforts and resources to some people who are already on the front lines of this subject. I hate to end this with a cheesy quote, but Helen Keller once said “the highest result of education is tolerance.” And I couldn’t agree with that more than I do right now.
That about wraps it up for me for this week, next week I’ll be back with more on this subject.
Steve
Discovering homelessness
By Steven McLaughlin in News
It was a whirlwind weekend back in Ohio a couple of weeks ago. My wife and I now live in New England and had flown into Ohio for a couple of days in order to attend the weddings of some friends. We bounced around the whole state putting roughly 700 miles on our borrowed cars wheels trying to get to and from airports, weddings, friend’s houses, houseboats, church, lunches and back again in roughly 72 hours.
Being home is usually an overwhelming experience for us since we live so far away now. We’re usually trying to fill every free minute catching up with people we haven’t seen in months. Sure there’s Skype, email, cell phones, face book and twitter to keep us connected with our friends and family, but what we crave is the ability to sit down and share a meal, or coffee, or conversation face to face with people and reconnect with them personally. Thus being home is usually exhausting in the best of ways.
This is all to say that it surprised me as we were speeding down a dirt road from one lunch gathering to the next we came to an unexpected stop. We had both noticed that in the left lane of this road in the middle of nowhere a large turtle was struggling to cross the street. For the life of us we couldn’t figure where this turtle was coming from or heading to, it looked lost, far away from any semblance of home and it looked like it needed our help. I pulled off to the side of the road, jogged over to where my new found friend was stranded and gently nudged him along off of the road.
Feeling like a champion of all things in nature big and small I got back into my car and continued to drive to see our friends.
And then out of nowhere, like a hot knife through butter, this thought just strikes through my heart.
Why was I so quick to get out and help that turtle, but when I see people on the side of the road with signs that say they are homeless, why do I even question whether or not I should stop?
Of course the glaringly obvious answer that hit me over and over again as I continued to drive was this; it’s incredibly easy to help a turtle cross the road, and it takes much more effort to help out someone who has lost their home.
Homelessness is more than just men and women on the sides of roads with signs. One definition I read of homelessness stated that it is people “without a permanent, safe, decent, affordable place to live.” Statistics on who, how many and why people are homeless range into the upper hundreds of thousands to the lower millions depending on who you might be asking.
Beyond that there are millions on the verge of homelessness, just hoping that they don’t have to pay to fix a broken down car or have an unexpected visit to the hospital that would eat their pay check and have them miss that month’s rent.
All of these things rattled around in my head throughout the weekend as we continued on our way and eventually got back to our home here on the East coast. I realized that homelessness isn’t just this little problem that is sometimes annoying and is going to go away if I ignore it long enough. So I’m going to keep researching and writing as much as I can, finding out where I fit into this puzzle. I’m looking forward to getting back here and sharing what I find out with all of you.
Whats In A Name?
But what does it mean?
I hear this question repeatedly when I attempt to explain what the Affero Project is doing. I often get so wrapped up in what we’re doing that I gloss right over what the name actually means.
I think we forget sometimes how important names can be. I’m sure if you ask your parents there is some story that explains why you were named what you were named. Maybe it connects you back to a family member or friend of the family, rooting you in tradition or hoping that the individual’s noblest of traits become a part of your character.
Perhaps you hate your name and the whole idea of being connected back to your heritage makes your skin crawl and because of this, you make up a story. Perhaps you like to imagine that in traffic riddled drive to the hospital your future parents were struggling against the wave of cars to bring you into this world in a delivery room and not a taxi cab. Perhaps two cars over, former astronaut Randall Freewater* sees your perilous plight and decides to use his engineering skills and charming personality to direct traffic in order for your parents to clearly navigate towards their destination. Because of this scenario your parents have named you Randall. This story makes you feel much more at peace with your name than the story where they named you after your dad’s cousin Randy whom he had recently been on a fishing trip with and caught the largest bass of his life.
This is all to say that a name carries a lot of weight to it, whether you are naming your intramural softball team or your car, you want a name that means something and connects you to an idea that is bigger than yourself. Affero is no different in this respect; the name was not chosen just because it sounded cool or would look good on a bumper sticker or t-shirt. (Although all of those things happen to be true)
In a nutshell Affero means; to contribute, to bring about change, to proclaim, to empower. That seems like a lot of work for such a little word, but that’s exactly why it fits the projects ideas. Too many times I think we feel as if we are too small to overcome injustice in our world, that we are essentially powerless and tiny.
When we join together though, we can leave behind our inferiority and sense of smallness. We can bring about real change and empower people who need our help. When you contribute whatever you can, and that’s added to your dad’s cousin Randy contributing whatever he can, and that’s added to former astronaut Randall Freewater contributing whatever he can, it starts to add up. And that’s what the word Affero means.
To be honest I had no clue what the word affero meant until I did a little research. However, once I found out I knew I needed to share it. Words exploded out of me and onto my laptop screen. That’s just kind of how my brain works, I love to dive into things I don’t know about, find out everything I can about them and share it all with others. I’m hoping that future posts find me exploring ideas, people, places and the world that I don’t know, and coming back here to share it with all of you. I look forward to getting to know all of you.
*Former astronaut Randall Freewater may or may not exist solely for the purpose of this post.