Do your holiday shopping from our Facebook page!

Shop, and feel good!We owe you some thanks for practicing ShopAnthropy for Lotus Outreach. As you may remember, we trumpeted the arrival of the Nonprofit Shopping Mall widget with much ado this summer, and we're pleased to say that the contributions received since we published that blog on May 25 tripled the amount we received in the six months prior - so thank you!

The good news doesn't end there - shopping to earn free money for our causes in India and Cambodia just got easier. Now all you need to do is visit our Facebook page and look for the tab on the left side that reads "Donate by Shopping Here." You'll find it under our profile picture, between "Info" and "Photos."

Click on it, and - Presto! Before your eyes will appear a list of 40 hot retailers like Amazon.com, Target, Netflix and ProFlowers. We've got less than a month left in 2011, but it's the busiest shopping month of the year we want to double our earnings! Will you help us?

Just a click away from free donationsIf you think it's easier to install a widget that will track any and all  eligible purchases made on your computer, the procedure is simple. The downside? The shopping widget is only compatible with Firefox and Internet Explorer. Those of you who browse with Google Chrome can still earn charitable dollars through your online purchases, but you must either open a compatible web browser to shop with the widget, or stop by our Facebook page before visiting your favorite retailers.

The power of micro-philanthropy is in numbers, so be sure to tell your friends and family how easy it is to contribute to the cause that is close to your heart. Share this blog, write a post on Facebook, or talk, talk talk about why you love LO. Nothing inspires action like passion!

The Literacy Lightswitch

by Glenn Fawcett
Lotus Outreach Director of Field Operations

A Lettered WomanWhile we have always been aware of the importance of numeracy and literacy, during the course of interviews with dozens of Non-Formal Education students during my recent monitoring visit on November 17 and 18, I became aware that literacy does more than impact on self worth, and it does more than increase a girl’s capacity to identify and undertake further study and training toward better life options. For many of the women in NFE, attaining literacy is very much like switching the light on in a dark room.

On many occasions the students confirmed that learning reading and writing had a profound impact on their self-esteem as well as the way others regarded and treated them. For instance, before they could read, many tended to stay home rather than put trust in taxi drivers to know where they were and how much it cost to get there, or even to receive back correct change. As women they are already highly vulnerable; as women who can’t read or do math, even more so.

Being able to read road signs, read billboards with health advice, add and subtract and eventually, and interpret and sign simple contracts profoundly lessens a Cambodian woman’s dependence on others and and amplifies her sense of self reliance. The themes of autonomous decision-making and critical thinking were repeated to me again and again on the basis of the prompt, “How has literacy and numeracy changed your life?”

There is sufficient evidence to suggest that those choosing work in the entertainment or sex industries are easily persuaded due to having to trust others to find their way. Lack of money greatly restricts mobility and increases reliance on others to get around. Without mobility it’s very difficult to achieve even basic life objectives. NFE students often describe their developing literacy as coming out of a blankness where they could only rely on others, and into a clarity where they could analyze and decide for themselves based on available options. The class curriculum is geared to enable this type of development.

During the interviews the second important benefit of the NFE course that surfaced is in health care and disease prevention. For young women engaged with multiple partners, avoiding unplanned pregnancies and STDs is fundamental to their survival. Knowing about their bodies, especially where gynecological health is concerned, is of primary importance.

After establishing literacy and thereby sparking the development of critical thinking, the young women of NFE are assisted in creating a life-plan. The steps toward achieving it often include skills training to qualify them for jobs other than beer promotion, karaoke and massage – all of which are slippery slopes toward prostitution.

Help LO partner with The Girl Effect Fund this October 19

As you may have read in our newsletter, Lotus Outreach has an incredible opportunity to join forces with an international powerhouse dedicated to beating poverty by empowering girls. The Girl Effect, a movement created by the Nike and Novo Foundations, has teamed up with the online philanthropic marketplace GlobalGiving to launch a fundraising challenge to organizations capitalizing on the power of females.

Lotus Outreach has already made the first cut! We proposed our Blossom Bus project and the Girl Effect Challenge accepted. Guaranteeing that 100 young women in Mewat, India can attend secondary school is a cause that deserves a chance to win.  

Twelve projects will be spotlighted on the Girl Effect’s GlobalGiving fundraising page for one full year, granting what for many of them will be unprecedented exposure to tens of thousands of donors. Spots will be given to six projects that attract the largest number of unique donors, and the next six will be selected based on innovation and impact.

We want to secure our place among the first set. The organizations which receive donations from the most donors - not the most money - will win. Once the contest opens on October 15, we need YOU to rally your friends and family to donate to the Blossom Bus.

The minimum donation is $10, and we're sure that our fans (YOU!) can bring in more of those than about 50 other projects in the running. The Challenge will remain open until November 15, but another campaign offered by GlobalGiving makes one day better than all the rest: October 19. On that day GlobalGiving is giving away $100,000 to match all donations (up to $1,000) 30 percent. On Wednesday the 19th, every $10 donation to the Blossom Bus receives an extra $.30; every $100 donation receives a $30 bonus, and a $1,000 donation picks up a cool $300.

Not excited about the Girl Effect yet? Check out this video by FITE, and we bet you'll be ready to jump on the Blossom Bus, too.

 

No simple answers

This October 6 article in the LA Times provides visceral glimpses of the abuse suffered by teen prostitutes in Las Vegas - a 16 year-old whose boyfriend is also her pimp, a  pregnant 13 year-old testifying against a man twice her age who lured her into "the game" from his Cadillac, a dead 17 year-old who carried condoms, a fake ID, and a bottle of vodka in her purse.

They are alternatively angry, indifferent, scared, or in love, depending on the day.

Prostitution happens a hundred different ways, from women in windows to boys in bathrooms, and avenues of recruitment are no less varied. Yet once out, sex workers across the globe frequently find it difficult, or even impossible, to stay away from their former circles. They are commonly drawn back to the same cycles of physical, emotional and psychological abuse.

If this story makes one thing clear it's that there are no simple answers; but that's not to say there's nothing to be done. The support and skills training we offer sex workers in Cambodia gives them a solid opportunity to rebuild their self-esteem, and we have seen women who were once reviled and tossed away turn their lives around to become proud members of their communities.

It's impossible to reach everyone, but at the very least we can listen.

A 17 year-old in her cell

Beating hunger

by Glenn Fawcett
Director of Field Operations

Nyak Srey Yaan is 17 and in grade 9. We met Yaan with her widowed mother at their humble one room shack home in rural Siem Reap, Cambodia. They were making coconut sweets from rice flour from their Girls' Access To Education (GATE) program rice support to sell in their village.

Yaan and her mother at home

They have no electricity and their only source of light at night is shed by a kerosene lantern. They defecate in the open and pull up dirty water from a ring well that needs filtering and boiling before it can be used. “Yaan's father, my husband, died when I was six months pregnant with Yaan,” says her mother. “She was my third child and second girl. I decided at the time I wouldn’t remarry as I know that men in Cambodia often treat their stepdaughters very badly.” (Sexual abuse is common in this circumstance.)

“I understand the value of education even though I only studied until grade 2 myself,” she continues. “It will prepare them for better jobs from which they will earn more, and work that is not as grueling. I also send money to my son in grade 11, who is being supported for food and accommodation at a Buddhist temple.”

Yaan has no bicycle and walks three kilometers to and from school every day. She has been in the Girls' Access To Education program for three years and received family rice support for two. “We have a small plot of land that doesn’t provide enough for us to eat,” her mother explains. “We make sweets and rice noodles at home to supplement our income using some of the 50kg of rice support we receive from Lotus Outreach. Yaan works on holidays and sometimes on weekends for $2.50 per day to help out, but we make sure work does not interfere with her studies.”

Yaan suffers from migraine headaches which impact her studies. Even so she has been able to buckle down and improve her class rank to the top 30 percent, assisted by program-provided tutoring in path, chemistry, Physics and Khmer literature. “I like physics because it’s difficult,” Yaan says. “I don’t know why but the more difficult the subject the more I like it. Tutoring helps me a great deal, but I sometimes have to use some of my stipend when I’m hungry.”

Yaan's mother making coconut sweetsWith one parent and little income beyond what their mother earns making sweets and brooms from local grasses, Yaan’s family are no strangers to hunger. Even with monthly rice support, they continue to live on the edge to keep the children in school. All of them are acutely aware their appetites must be kept in check lest they eat into their other needs.

And yet Yaan speaks of her future with a grin. “I want to become a primary school teacher, for which I need to finish year twelve – and which I am determined to do,” she says. “I plan to apply for the Teacher Training College at Battambang because it’s nearest to home, and safer since we have some family friends there.”

See more photos of Yaan, her mother and our GATE program in Siem Reap on Flickr.